The Landloper. Holman Day

gave in return a smile, but it was not a particularly genial smile.

      The young man went on his way leisurely; by his gait, by his frequent and somewhat prolonged pauses at shop windows, by his indifferent starings at traffic and pedestrians, it was plain that he had little of moment on his mind.

      He bought a penny glass of water at a corner kiosk.

      “Do you mind telling me,” he asked the vender, “Who is Colonel Dodd of this city? I am a stranger and I have just overheard the name.”

      The man grinned. “If it wasn't for Colonel Symonds Dodd I wouldn't be making much of a living here, selling spring-water. He is president of the Consolidated.”

      “And that means?”

      “Why, it means that he is boss of the water trust that owns the system in this city and in all the other cities and towns of this state. And they pump all of their water out of the rivers because the lakes are so far off, and nobody drinks that water unless he has to or don't know any better. Colonel Dodd? Why, he bosses the whole state, they tell me.”

      “I gathered that he was important,” said the young man, and walked on.

      He was held up in the passing crowd at a street corner for a few moments because a parade of some half-dozen automobiles whirled past. The cars were decorated with banners, and the wild flowers and other spoil of forest and field in the arms of the ladies indicated that this was a party returning from a picnic in the suburbs.

      “Would you mind telling me,” asked Farr of the policeman who was guarding the corner, “who that young man is—the one there in the gray automobile?”

      “With the bleached blonde and the pretty girl?” asked the officer. “Oh, that's Colonel Dodd's nephew—Dicky Dodd. Of course you know who the colonel is.”

      “Yes,” said Farr. He opened his mouth to ask another question, for the policeman seemed to be of the obliging sort. Then he closed his lips resolutely and marched along.

      “What's the use?” he muttered. “Two dark eyes and a red mouth—and I am almost forgetting how to be a philosopher.”

      Farther down the city thoroughfare he met one who had claimed to be a philosopher. It was Jared Chick, stalking along the sidewalk in his home-made armor. He held a box of stove-polish in one hand and a brush in the other, and as he strolled he was giving his corselet and such parts of the armor as he could handily reach a glossy coat—a gleaming and burnished surface. On his helmet in place of a crest Knight Chick bore aloft a metal banneret inscribed, “Invincible Stove Polish.”

      “And the mission?” asked Farr, halting his quondam companion, who had been too intent upon his business to pay heed to passers.

      “I find thee changed, and no doubt thee, too, finds me changed,” sighed Mr. Chick.

      The mouth of an alley between high buildings afforded a retreat and the breeze blew there fitfully, and Mr. Chick stepped to that oasis of shade in the glare of sunshine.

      “I have been obliged to modify my mission in some degree. I must confess that to thee,” he said. “This is a strange and wicked world.”

      “Didn't you know it before you gave up a good blacksmith business to go out in the hot sun and suffer torment, all for nothing?”

      “It is very hard work,” acknowledged Chick, showing his flushed and streaming face under his vizor. “If I were not used to the fires of the forge I think I would fall down and die. But I must keep on.”

      “But you are simply an advertising-sign.”

      “I have modified my mission. I have not given up, however. I will tell thee! I found a man beside the way—a man who had been drinking strong waters and whose pockets had been turned wrong side out. So I took him to a tavern and I sat with him through the night, and nursed him when he suffered, and revealed my mission when he awoke. 'I am out to do good to all men,' I told him, and he searched through his pockets with blasphemy, and he said that I had done him—and he haled me before the court, and the judge said that no man could publicly profess such disinterestedness and escape suspicion, because people in these days are all looking for the main chance. So he did not believe me and he sentenced me to the jail. But a good Samaritan interceded for me and took me from behind the bars, and now in the spirit of gratitude I am repaying him; he makes and sells this stove-polish.”

      “That man is evidently shrewd in business and a good advertiser,” commented Farr.

      “I find that I get along much better in the world,” asserted the knight-errant. “Now that I carry an advertising-sign my armor attracts no rude mobs. I can go abroad and do good to a foolish world; I can use the stipend my good benefactor allows to me for my work and I can help poor folks here and there. Therefore, I am content with my modified mission. Is thee more at peace with the world?”

      “I ought to be, after hearing you say that you are contented,” said Farr, with irony.

      “Thee has manifestly improved thy condition, so I observe.”

      “It often happens in this world, Friend Chick, that the sleeker we are on the outside, the more ragged we are within. I think I'll move on. I might say something to jar your sense of sublime content. I'd be sorry to do that. Real contentment is a rare thing and must be handled very carefully.”

      “I fear thee loves thyself too much,” chided the Quaker. “Affection for somebody might make thee happy, my friend.”

      Farr choked back the comment that occurred to him in regard to love and walked away.