ge
tourist ever discovers. I'll give you the names of some people who will
gladly help you. And we shall want a full report when you come back. God
bless you, J.W."

It was a tired preacher who went to bed that night. This new adventure
of his boy's; what would it mean to the Experiment? He had done his best
to keep that long-ago pledge to himself. Not always had the project been
easy; he could not control all its circumstances, but in the main it had
gone well.

And now J.W. was in the last stage of the Experiment Walter Drury had
contrived to shape its larger conditions, with the help of many friendly
but unsuspecting conspirators. This tour in the interest of better tools
was due mainly to his initiative. But he could do nothing more. The
event was now out of his hands. The relaxed tension made him realize
that his nerves were shaky, and he had a sense of great depression. But
before he went to bed he pulled himself together long enough to write to
five missionaries, including Joe Carbrook, whose fields were on or near
the route J.W. would travel. He had told J.W. that he would let these
men know of his coming, but he did more. To each one he said a word of
appeal. "Don't argue much with this boy of mine; I want him to see it
without too many second-hand opinions. Explain all you please, and let
him get as near as he can to the people you are dealing with. If, as I
hope, he gets a glimpse of the work's inner meaning, I shall be
satisfied."

* * * * *

The first day which J.W. spent in Shanghai was a big day for him. Even
amid the strangeness of the scene he felt almost at home. The people who
had the Cummings agency had received their instructions, and were
prepared to help him every way. He could begin an up-country trip at
once if he wished. Then he met the first of the men to whom Pastor Drury
had written, Mark Rutledge, and at once he saw that this well-groomed,
alert young missionary, who used modern speech in deliberate but direct
fashion, would be of immense service to him.

Rutledge received J.W.'s gospel of tools with almost boyish
enthusiasm. "I've always said," he exclaimed, "that if the other
business men of America had as much sense as the tobacco folks they
would hasten the Christianizing of China by many a year. Not that
tobacco is helping; far from it. But it's the idea of fitting their
product to this particular market. And your house has evidently caught
that id