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unembarrassed girl apologizing to the studious-looking little man
who sat so calmly upon his hat in the middle of the street. Meantime all
traffic on that side was hopelessly blocked. Swearing truck drivers
stood up on their seats from a block away to see what had halted the
procession.
"But what is the object of a dog like that?" inquired the man
ruminatively. "What good is he? What is he for?"
"Why--why--why," said she, looking ready to laugh--"he's not a
utilitarian dog at all, you see! He's a pleasure-dog, you know--just a big,
beautiful dog to give pleasure!--"

"The pleasure he has given me," said the man, gravely producing his
derby from beneath him and methodically undenting it, "is negligible. I
may say non-existent."
From somewhere rose a hoarse titter. The girl glanced up, and for the
first time became aware that her position was somewhat
unconventional. A very faint color sprang into her cheeks, but she was
not the kind to retreat in disorder. West dodged through the blockade in
time to hear her say with a final, smiling bow:
"I'm so glad you aren't hurt, believe me ... And if my dog has given you
no pleasure, you may like to think that you have given him a great
deal."
A little flushed but not defeated, her gloved hand knotted in
Behemoth's gigantic scruff, she moved away, resigning the situation to
West. West handled it in his best manner, civilly assisting the little man
to rise, and bowing himself off with the most graceful expressions of
regret for the mishap.
Miss Weyland was walking slowly, waiting for him, and he fell in
beside her on the sidewalk.
"Don't speak to me suddenly," said she, in rather a muffled voice. "I
don't want to scream on a public street."
"Scratch a professor and you find a Tartar," said West, laughing too.
"When I finally caught you, laggard that I was, you looked as if he
were being rude."
Miss Weyland questioned the rudeness; she said that the man was only
superbly natural. "Thoughts came to him and he blabbed them out
artlessly. The only things that he seemed in the least interested in were
his apples and Bee. Don't you think from this that he must be a floral
and faunal naturalist?"
"No Goth, at any rate. Did you happen to notice the tome sticking out
of his coat pocket? It was The Religion of Humanity, unless my old

eyes deceived me. Who under heaven reads Comte nowadays?"
"Not me," said Miss Weyland.
"There's nothing to it. As a wealthy old friend of mine once remarked,
people who read that sort of books never make over eighteen hundred a
year."
On that they turned into Saltman's. There much stationery and
collateral stuff was bought for cash paid down, and all for the use of the
Department. Next, at a harness-store, a leash was bargained for and
obtained, and Behemoth bowled over no more young men that day.
Thereafter, the two set their faces westerly till they came to the girl's
home, where the dog was delivered to the cook, and Miss Weyland
went upstairs to kiss her mother. Still later they set out northward
through the lamp-lit night for the older part of town, where resided the
aunt on whose behalf there was dunning to be done that night.
Charles Gardiner West asserted that he had not a thing in all this world
to do, and that erranding was only another way of taking a walk, when
you came to think of it. She was frankly glad of his company; to be
otherwise was to be fantastic; and now as they strolled she led him to
talk of his work, which was never difficult. For West, despite his rising
prosperity, was dissatisfied with his calling, the reason being, as he
himself sometimes put it, that his heart did not abide with the money
changers.
"Sometimes at night," he said seriously, "I look back over the busy day
and ask myself what it has all amounted to. Suppose I did all the
world's stock-jobbing, what would I really have accomplished? You
may say that I could take all the money I made and spend it for free
hospitals, but would I do it? No. The more I made, the more I'd want
for myself, the more all my interest and ambition would twine
themselves around the counting-room. You can't serve two masters, can
you, Miss Weyland? Uplifting those who need uplifting is a separate
business, all by itself."
"You could make the money," laughed she, "and let me spend it for you.

I know this minute where I could put a million to glorious advantage."
"I'm going to get out of it," said West. "I've told Semple so--though
perhaps it ought not to