ve that
his side is the only one, the right one. Life wouldn't be worth living
without it. You don't know what it means to be _fighting for the
right_!"

From below came the droning of the unquiet streets. A little higher up a
hot wind went almost noiselessly among the chimneys, so that we heard
but faint sighs. The roof garden was in darkness, naught gleaming but
the little glass bowl of gold fish. There was a sense of utter darkness
and loneliness--and yet into it had come, like the glad, brave blast of
New Year's trumpet, a battle cry of the One God. A battle cry which made
throb the heart of a young, rough boy; a battle cry which would be his
whole life's secret well of gratitude and bravery.

"_You don't know what it means to be fighting for the right!_"

He was so slight, so meagre in appearance, that I could not help finding
something gently humorous about his utterance. But when I looked at him
and saw how his eyes glowed through the dark, and how he stood straight
and at full height, his narrow shoulders thrown back, in spite of his
bandaged arm, and his face upraised to the summer stars, my smile passed
quickly.

There came over me that same queer panging sense of being only on the
outside of things--only on Life's outermost border. I was looking
straight into the heart of a boy and seeing the gladness which blazed
there--and yet I could not have it, as he had it. Here was this sudden,
all-forgetting boldness of belief which he had won--and I could only
watch it covetously through the bars of my exiled doubts.

No, no, he was right--a thousand times more right than I. If faith in
the One God did all of this for him, then that faith was surely
justified.

And if I could only bring myself to believe as deeply, as powerfully as
he did--then my whole life would be remade as his had been--and I, too,
would fight for what I must believe: would fight--_for the right_!

I did not let him talk any further, but sent him home. I did not want
his parents to be worrying as to where he was, this time of night. I
stayed on a little while, looking over the roofs and the white-faced
huddlings of the fire-escapes, and then I went to bed, to toss with heat
and battle with my thoughts throughout the night.

When the morning came, I went early to Frank's house. The pavements were
fresh and damp with the water of a sprinkling cart, and the shops, just
beginning to open, had a Sabbath air of cleanliness. It was cooler than