eling for some one
whose touch may inspire confidence. That's the position I'm in."

"You make a strong appeal," said Henry, "far stronger than any
personal advantages you could point out to me."

"But is it strong enough to move you?"

"It might be strong enough to move me to a sacrifice of myself, and
still fail to draw me into a willingness to risk the opinion you have
expressed of what you term my manliness. As a business man I know that
I should be a failure, and then I'd have your pity instead of your
good opinion. Let me tell you that I am a very ordinary man. I haven't
the quickness which is a business man's enterprise, nor that judgment
which is his safeguard. My newspaper is a success, but it is mainly
because I have a capable man in the business office. It grieves me to
disappoint you, and I will take an oath that if I felt myself capable
I'd cheerfully give up journalism and place myself at your service."

"Father," said Mrs. Witherspoon--and anxiously she had been watching
her husband--"I don't see what more he could say."

"He has said quite enough," Witherspoon replied.

"But you are not angry, are you, papa?" Ellen asked.

"No, I'm hurt."

"I'm very sorry," said Henry, "but permit me to say that a man of your
strength of mind shouldn't be hurt by a present disappointment that
may serve to prevent a possible calamity in the future."

"High-sounding nonsense. I could pick up almost any bootblack and make
a good business man of him."

"But you can't pick up almost any boy and make a good bootblack of
him. The bootblack is already a business man in embryo."

Witherspoon did not reply to this statement. He mused for a few
moments and then remarked: "If it weren't too late we might make a
preacher of you."

Mrs. Witherspoon's countenance brightened. "I am sure he would make a
good one," she said. "My grandfather was a minister, and we have a
book of his sermons now, somewhere. If you want it, my son, I will get
it for you."

"Not to-night, mother."

"I didn't mean to-night. Ellen, what _are_ you giggling at?"

"Why, mother, he would rather smoke that old black pipe than to read
any book that was ever printed."

"When I saw the pipe that had robbed Kittymunks of his coat," said
Henry, "I thought of my pipe tied with a ribbon."

During the remainder of the evening Witherspoon joined not in the
conversation, he sat brooding, and when bed-time came, he stood in his
accustomed place on the hea