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 one. And when you find him, Mr. Eaton, if you do find him, don't baby him, don't spare him. The making or the breaking of my boy's character is in your hands. I have done my duty to him. My whole duty. Now do yours."

"Does anybody know?" asked Mr. Eaton miserably, "which way John ran?"

"He boarded the train for New York."

"I'll catch the next train," said Mr. Eaton. "I had best put some things in a valise. I may be gone all night. New York is a big city. I wonder where the boy would go."

And he kept on wondering until far into the night.

It was not the most miserable night that the Reverend Mr. Eaton had ever spent. To begin with, he was not in the least worried about John's personal safety, and in the second place it was one of the few nights since his marriage which he had been allowed to spend anywhere by himself. Whatever feelings had impelled John to run away from home were understandingly shared by his father. He would have liked to run away himself.

And if he had been a son instead of a husband and father he would have run away. For the Reverend Mr. Eaton had pretty well concluded—and this would have shaken his congregation to the soul—that he had at best one life to live, and