The Alchemists Secret | Page 8

convinced that we had met before,
but when and where? I racked my memory, but the name, the
personality I wanted, eluded my grasp. Something of my thoughts must
have shown in my face, for when Jim finished his narrative he threw
back his head, laughing merrily at my very evident perplexity.
"'It is really too bad to keep you guessing any longer, Father,' he said.
'Let me help you to remember when and where we met before. Listen
and I will tell you a little story.
"'It is Commencement day at a certain large college in a certain city
which we need not name. The graduating class have met together for
the last time in their own particular class-room. The saintly,
white-haired priest who has watched their progress step by step from
the day they first entered college stands before them. He speaks words
to them which brings tears to those young eyes, accustomed, as a rule,
to looking only on the merry side of life. He speaks words of true
affection, of gentle admonition and fatherly advice. He gives to each
youth a tiny silver medal of our Blessed Mother, and exacts from each
one a promise that he will faithfully carry that little medal until the day
of his death.'

"As Jim spoke he took from an inner pocket a small medal of our Lady
and laid it on the palm of his hand. I drew forth my rosary, and there,
beside the crucifix, hung a medal the counterpart of Jim's. He smiled as
he continued:
"'I see you remember now, Father, but listen just a little longer for my
story is not finished. From that class-room those lads went forth into
the busy world of men and of affairs. They went their separate ways,
each one to fill that position in life to which he felt himself called, most
of them fired by ambition and confident of success.
"'One of those young men left the college that night with his heart as
buoyant and hopeful as any of his companions. Almost from the first,
however, things seemed to go wrong with him. He was an orphan,
father and mother having died a few years before. Perhaps if either
parent had been at hand to warn him of the dangers into which he was
drifting, his life might have been different. Perhaps, even if some one
had warned him, the warning would have passed unheeded. He tried
law for a time and did not like it; tried business and gave that up;
drifted from one thing to another, always drifting lower, lower, until at
last he found himself an outcast and a wanderer. For some years he
lived the life of a vagrant. If at times a longing to return to better ways,
a longing for all that might have been, stirred faintly within him, the
feeling was quickly drowned by recourse to the one thing to which he
remained faithful, the enemy that had brought about his ruin, drink.
"'During his wanderings he picked up odd jobs here and there, and one
day he is taken on by the boss of the stone-crusher over there in those
quarries of yours. They were badly in need of some one to stoke the
engine, and even a rough looking tramp was welcome. That same day
there comes to the place a certain priest who is searching for one of the
stray sheep from his own fold. The tramp recognizes the priest at once,
and the sight of that familiar face brings back the old, happy days of his
innocent boyhood. The priest commences to speak; he pleads, he
reasons with the boss of the stone-crusher. In spirit the tramp is once
more back in the college chapel listening to the saintly old man who
had been his guide and confidant in youth, and who had long since

passed to his reward. The vague, discontented longing for better things
rises up in full strength. After all, why not? The look on the priest's face
as he turns away decides him. That look of bitter disappointment, of
real grief, on the face of his old college friend is more than the tramp
can stand. He speaks, the priest turns to him, and--well, the rest of the
story you know for yourself, Father. That is, the rest as far as any
mortal can relate it. The end is not yet, but I trust that end will be one
which will satisfy even you.'"
Silence reigned for several moments, the fragrant silence of a warm
May night. And then:
"I am sure it will, I am sure it will," mused Father Anthony, smiling
confidently. "I have no fear as to what the end will be for Jim, my
one-armed tramp."
"But the other man,