Queed | Page 5

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 go further just yet. I'd enjoy," said he, "just such work as yours. There's none finer. You'd like me immensely as your royal master, I suppose? Want nothing better than to curtsy and kowtow when I flung out a gracious order?--as, for instance, to shut up shop and go and take a holiday?"
"Delicious! Though I doubt if anybody in the world could improve on Mr. Dayne." Suddenly a new thought struck her, and she made a faint grimace. "There's nothing so very fine about my present work--oh me! I'll give you that if you want it."
"I see I must look