laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence
with such sudden passion that he drew blood.

"Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever
since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember
the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had
prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me!
But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my
bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while
she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of
yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and
you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and
tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell.
Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me
and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the
time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces
inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and
landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you
nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never
forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So
you're free to go. That's why."

The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The
man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The
Bishop was thinking hard.

"How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing
up answered for the other.

"More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of;
unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of
a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't
make nothin'."

"Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and
begin all over?"

"What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've
reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's
begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late."

"No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience
had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the
time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord
Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for
them. Give them to me!"

"No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It
doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in
this case. You two men are of