The Brown Study | Page 2

but I'm going to lose it."
"How do you know?"
"Every thing points that way."
"What, for instance?"
"Oh--I can't tell you, so you'd understand."
"Am I so thick-headed?" Brown asked the question seriously. His eyes, keen, yet full of sympathetic interest, rested inquiringly upon his caller's face.
"It's in the air, that's all I can say. I wouldn't be surprised to be fired any minute--after eight years' service. And--it's got on my nerves so I can't do decent work, even to keep up my own self-respect till I do go. And what I'm to do afterward--"
Brown was silent, looking into the fire. His caller shifted in his chair; he had shifted already a dozen times since he sat down. His nervous hands gripped the worn arms of the rocker restlessly, unclosing only to take fresh hold, until the knuckles shone white.
"There's the wife," said Brown presently.
The caller groaned aloud in his unhappiness.
"And the kiddies."
"God! Yes."
"I meant to mention Him," said Brown, in a quietly matter-of-fact way. "I'm glad you thought of Him. He's in this situation, too."
The caller's brow grew black. "That's one thing I came to say to you: I'm through with all that. No use to give me any of it. I don't believe in it--that's all."
Brown considered him, apparently not in the least shocked. The caller's clothes were very nearly shabby, certainly ill-kept. His shoes had not been blackened that day. He needed a hair-cut. His sensitive, thin face was sallow, and there were dark circles under his moody eyes.
Brown got up and went out by a door which opened beside the chimney-piece into the room behind, which was his kitchen. He stirred about there for some time, then he invited Jennings out. There were crisply fried bacon and eggs, and toast and steaming coffee ready for the two men--Brown's cookery.
They sat down, and Brown bowed his head.
His companion did not bow his but he dropped his eyes, letting his glance rest upon the bacon.
"_Lord_" said Brown simply, "_we ask Thy blessing on this food. Give us food for our souls, as well. We need it. Amen_."
Then he looked up at the caller. "Pitch in, Jennings," said he, and set the example.
For a man who professed to have had his supper Jennings did pretty well.
When the meal was over Brown sent Jennings back to the fireside while he himself washed the dishes. When he rejoined his visitor Jennings looked up with a sombre face.
"Life's just what that card a fellow tacked up in the office one day says it is:--'_one damned thing after another_,'" he asserted grimly. "There's no use trying to see any good in it all."
Brown looked up quickly. Into his eyes leaped a sudden look of understanding, and of more than understanding--anger with something, or some one. But his voice was quiet.
"So somebody's put that card up in your office, too. I wonder how many of them there are tacked up in offices all over the country."
"A good many, I guess."
"I suppose every time you look up at it, it convinces you all over again," remarked Brown. He picked up the poker, and leaning forward began to stir the fire.
"I don't need convincing. I know it--I've experienced it. God!--I've had reason to."
"If you don't believe in Him"--Brown was poking vigorously now--"why bring Him into the conversation?"
Jennings laughed--a short, ugly laugh. "That sounds like you, always putting a fellow in a corner. I use the word, I suppose, to--"
"To give force to what you say? It does it, in a way. But it's not the way you use it when you address Him, is it?"
"I don't address Him." Jennings's tone was defiant.
Brown continued lightly to poke the fire. "About that card," said he. "I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible for putting down and out."
Jennings stared. "Oh, it's just a joke. I laughed the first time I saw it."
"And the second time?"
"I don't remember. The fellows were all laughing over it when it first came out."
"It was a clever thing, a tremendously clever thing, for a man to think of saying. There's so much humour in it. To a man who happened to be already feeling that way, one can see just how it would cheer him up, give him courage, brace him to take a fresh hold."
Jennings grunted. "Oh, well; if you're going to take every joke with such deadly seriousness--"
"You took it lightly, did you? It's seemed like a real joke to you? It's grown funnier and funnier every day, each time it caught your eye?"
But now Jennings groaned. "No, it hasn't. But that's because it's too true to keep on seeming funny."
Brown suddenly brought his fist down on the arm of Jennings's rocker with a thump which made his nerve-strung visitor jump in his chair. "It _isn't_ true! It's not the saying of