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158 lives to come within a mile o' the house. He held my boy's hand whilst he was a-dyin'; that's what he done, an' he come there an' read the funeral business when my own brother was afraid to come into the yard; an' the missus would crawl a hundred miles on her hands and knees to-night to do the least kindness to the preacher with a heart in him. Oh, to hell with your knockin'!"

For a moment following this impassioned speech there was utter silence in the room; then came a roar of applause, and in the midst of it some one shouted: "Drink! To the preacher with a heart in 'im! Drink!"

Every man in the room was on his feet and drinking, save Lamar; and every man drank his cup to the bottom in honor of the clergyman who was not afraid.

It was a strange tribute; equivocal, incongruous, unseemly no doubt, but genuine indeed. Lamar stood, for a moment, sullen and defiant; but before the glasses were lowered he turned to the bartender and said:

"When Bricky comes in tell him I want to see him."

Then he strode on into an adjoining private room, and closed the door behind him. But he took back nothing that he had said.

Ten minutes later Bricky came and joined Lamar in the private room. He was a tall, angular fellow, with a shock of dull red hair, and a pair of gray eyes that looked out shrewdly from under overhanging brows. He was a skilled laborer in the plant of the Malleson Manufacturing Company, and a leader of the workingmen employed there.

"You'll have a beer, won't you?" he asked, touching a button in the wall behind him.

"I wasn't drinking," replied Lamar, "but I will have a whiskey, and I'll have it straight. Beer won't touch