y to the abandoned one, the dominie observed to the pessimist:
'I'll guarantee, by a few adroit questions, to so develop the good side
of this fallen creature that you will be driven to confess its
existence.'

"They traveled the corridors, and finally the guard threw open a cell
wherein was a man whose face was so utterly brutal that its softest
expression was a breach of the peace. The man, who was in for life, had
committed an atrocious murder.

"The only thing in the cell besides the man was a rat, which--wheel
within wheel--was confined in a little cage. This rat was the prisoner's
darling; the guard said that he would draw blood from his arm to feed
it. The good dominie--who knew his business--instantly seized upon the
rat for his cue.

"'And you love the rat?' he said to the prisoner.

"'I love it better than my life!' cried the prisoner. 'There isn't
anything I wouldn't sacrifice for that rat.'

"'There,' said the good dominie, wheeling on the pessimist, who was
visibly subdued by the poor prisoner's love for his humble pet, 'there,
you see! Here is a captive wretch whose estate is hopeless. He wears the
brand of a felon and is doomed to stone-caged solitude throughout his
life. And yet, without friends or light or liberty, with everything to
sour and harden and promote the worst that's in him, he finds it in his
heart to love! From those white seed which were planted by Providence in
the beginning that beautiful love springs up to blossom in a dreary
prison, and, for want of a nobler object, waste its tender fragrance on
a rat. It touches me to the heart!' and the good dominie watered the
floor of the cell with his tears.

"The pessimist had no more to say; he murmured his contrition and
declared that he had received a lesson. He would never again distrust or
contradict the existence of that spark of divine goodness which, at the
bottom of every nature like a diamond at the bottom of a pit, would live
quenchless through the ages to save the soul at last.

"The good dominie and the reformed pessimist were retiring, when the
dominie paused, like Senator Coot, to ask one question--the only one he
couldn't have answered in advance.

"'Why, my poor man, do you love that rat?'

"The prisoner's face became more brutal with the light of a diabolical
joy.

"'Why do I love him?' he cried. Then, with a chuckle of fiendish
exultation: 'Because he bit the warden.'"

The adroit Senator Gruff might have found it