nd, he was not of the emotional type, and so, when Maxwell
had seated himself comfortably and had lighted his briar pipe, Danny
started down the road at a vigorous pace, grinning broadly at
Maxwell's attire as he remarked:

"So you're really goin' to work like the rest of us, I reckon."

"Right you are, Danny--four days a week, anyhow. Don't I look like the
real thing?"

"Sure you do; only you better not shave every day, and you'll have to
get your hands dirty before you can fool anybody, and maybe your
face'll give you away even then. Be you comfortable in them clothes?"

"Sure thing; I'm never so contented as I am in working clothes."

"That's all right. You're the stuff. But how about the proper old
maids in the parish who ogle and dance around you; they won't cotton
to your clothes a little bit. They'll think you're degradin' of
yourself and disgracin' of the parish. Here you be ridin' on a stone
wagon, and you don't look a bit better than me, if I do say it."

"I'm afraid they'll have to survive the shock somehow or other; a man
has to dress according to his work."

"Hm! Now there's that there Mrs. Roscoe-Jones and Miss Bascom; I'll
bet if they saw you in that rig they'd throw a fit."

"Oh no; it isn't as bad as that, Danny."

"They'd think you'd been disgraced for life, to become a laborin' man,
you bet."

"A what?"

"A laborin' man."

"Then you think that a parson doesn't labor?"

"Well, I always thought that bein' a parson was a dead easy job, and a
nice clean job too."

"Danny," Maxwell inquired after a momentary silence, "don't you
suppose that a man labors with his brain as well as with his muscles?
And sometimes a parson labors with his heart, and that is the hardest
kind of work a man ever does. The man who is most of a laboring man
is the man who labors with every power and faculty he possesses."

"Well, now, I guess that may be right, if you look at it that way."

"Yes; you speak of a laboring man, and you mean a man who uses his
muscles and lets his brain and his feelings die of starvation. To try
to help some one you're fond of, who is going to the bad, is the most
nerve-racking and exhausting work which any man can possibly do."

"Hm! you always was a dum queer parson, more like the rest of us,
somehow. And you don't hold that you're disgracin' your profession
ridin' with me, and shovelin' gravel?"

"I don't seem to be worrying much about it, do I?"

"No," he agreed--and added,