room, his lower lip
hanging down, bestowing glares of different intensity upon every
individual and object present, and even making a threatening motion
with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about the floor until
it was weary and fretful and was uttering plaintive cries from time to
time. His mother was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued
to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom indulged in a
violent expletive, which had the effect of temporarily silencing the
child and causing it to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom
returned the infant's stare for a moment or two, and then, moved by
some spirit which he was not able to identify, he stooped and picked
up the infant and sat down in a chair. When his mother returned, she
was so astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of the house,
down to the shop, and dragged her husband away and back to his home.
When the door was opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his
big son rocking the youngest member of the family to and fro over the
rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse and apparently ecstatic voice,--

"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."

CHAPTER XIV.

"Well, doctor," said Deacon Quickset to his pastor one morning, "I hope
you have persuaded that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of
safety and to lay hold of the horns of the altar."

"My dear sir," said Dr. Guide to his deacon, "the conversation I had
with that rather unusual character has led me to believe that he is
quite as safe at present as any of the members of my own congregation."

"Oh, doctor, doctor!" groaned the deacon, "that will never do! What is
the church to come to if everybody is to be allowed to believe just
what he wants to, and stop just when he gets ready, and not go any
further unless he understands everything before him? I don't need to
tell you, a minister of the gospel and a doctor of divinity, that we
have to live by faith and not by sight. I don't have to go over all the
points of belief to a man of your character to show you what a mistake
you are making, thinking that way about a poor common fellow that's
only got one idea in his head,--one that might be shaken out of it very
easily."

"Deacon," said the minister, "I am strongly of the impression that any
belief of any member of my congregation could be as easily shaken as
the one article of faith to which that poor fellow has bound himself. I
don't propose