he announced, "is a great pleasure."

David took the hand and murmured something polite.

Blaisdell chatted briskly for a few minutes, then departed. Radbourne
turned to his draftsman-to-be.

"Perhaps Mr. Blaisdell has told you we are needing a man here. Do you
think, now you've had a look at us, you would care to come and help us?"

"That's a pleasant way of putting it," said David a bit grimly. "I'm
needing a job badly. If you think you aren't afraid to try me--"

Radbourne smiled protestingly. "If you knew all Mr. Blaisdell has said
of you, you wouldn't say that. You have warm friends, Mr. Quentin, if
he is a sample."

"Did he tell you I've failed in the only thing I ever tried?"

"He didn't put it that way," the little man said gently. "Nor would I,
if I were you. There's such a thing as getting into the wrong
niche--which isn't failure at all. Shall we consider it settled that
you will come?"

"I'd like to be sure," David said, flushing, "that this job isn't one
of your--charities."

The little man flushed, too. "Oh, I _beg_ of you not to think that. I
expect you to prove it a good stroke of business for me. And I hope we
shall please each other. Your first name is David, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And mine is Jonathan. That ought to be a good omen. Don't you think
so?" And that diffident smile, so absurdly out of place on the face of
an employer, appeared again.

"Why, I hope so," said David.

"And I hope you will like the work, though it may not be very big at
first. I understand how important that is to a man." Radbourne nodded
gravely. "But I have a theory that if he puts his heart into his work
he is bound to get a good deal of happiness out of it. Don't you think
so?"

"I'll try to remember that. When do you want me to come?"

"Could you make it next Monday?"

"I will be here then."

David went away from Jonathan Radbourne, the comic valentine; and the
heartache, for some reason, was a little eased, courage a little
stiffened.

"After all," he kept saying to himself, "it's only a gift to Shirley
and the baby. And I'm _glad_ to give it to them--they're worth
anything. It's a debt, too. I owe them everything I can give. And
maybe now we can be happy as we used to be--no worries or quarrels."

He tried to keep thinking of that--of the comfort in knowing that next
month's expenses could be met, of debts growing less, not bigger, of a
love happily reborn under freedom f