swell diggings, trained flunkies, and all that?"

"I was born a gentleman, if that is what you mean. Of an old family,
yes. And there was an old house--once."

"How'd _you_ ever hit the trail for the Church? I wonder! But say,
you never asked me any more questions than you had to, so you can tell
me to shut up, if you want to. Not that I wouldn't like to know how
the Sam Hill the like of you ever got nabbed by the skypilots."

"God called me through affliction, my son."

"Oh," said my son, blankly. "Huh! But I bet you the best crib ever
cracked you were some peach of a boy before you got that 'S.O.S.'"

"I was, like the young, the thoughtless young, a sinner."

"I suppose," said he tentatively, after a pause, "that _I'm_ one hell
of a sinner myself, according to Hoyle, ain't I?"

"I do not think it would injure you to change your--course of life,
nor yet your way of mentioning it," I said, feeling my way cautiously.
"But--we are bidden to remember there is more joy in heaven over one
sinner saved than over the ninety-and-nine just men."

"Is that so? Well, it listens like good horse-sense to me," said Mr.
Flint, promptly. "Because, look here: you can rake in ninety-and-nine
boobs any old time--there's one born every time the clock ticks,
parson--but they don't land something like me every day, believe me!
And I bet you a stack of dollar chips a mile high there was some
song-and-dance in the sky-joint when they put one over on _you_ for
fair. Sure!" He puffed away at his pipe, and I, having nothing to say
to this fine reasoning, held my peace.

"Parson, that kid's a swell, too, ain't she? And the boy?"

"Laurence is the son of Judge Hammond Mayne."

"And the little girl?" Insensibly his voice softened.

"I suppose," I agreed, "that the little girl is what you might call a
swell, too."

"I never," said he, reflectively, "came what you might call _talking_
close to real swells before. I've seen 'em, of course--at a distance.
Some of 'em, taking 'em by and large, looked pretty punk, to me; some
of 'em was middling, and a few looked as if they might have the goods.
But none of 'em struck me as being real live breathing _people_, same
as other folks. Why, parson, some of those dames'd throw a fit,
fancying they was poisoned, if they had to breathe the same air with
folks like me--me being what I am and they being--what they think they
are. Yet here's you and Madame, the real thing--and the boy--and the
little