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68 work every day, side by side with him, in the interest of labor. If his deeper plan did not fail Lamar was not so fastidious as Barry Malleson had been about shutting out from his mind and contemplation the idea of making love to a woman who was at that moment sitting on one side of the coffined body of her husband while he sat on the other.

That afternoon, as the rector of Christ Church was returning from a service held by him in a mission chapel maintained by his church, he saw a funeral procession winding up a hill toward a suburban cemetery. The rest of his party had driven back to the city, but he had preferred to walk home alone. Of a man who stood at the curb he inquired whose funeral it was, and he was told that it was the funeral of John Bradley.

"The man that got smashed up in the Malleson mill," added his informant, "and they wouldn't give him no damages."

"Yes, I know about the case."

"And his wife went into court with a suit and got throwed out."

"I was in court at the time."

"That so? You're a preacher, ain't you?" looking at the clerical cut of his garments.

"Yes, I'm a preacher."

"Well, now, do you think that was a square deal?"

"No, frankly, I do not."

The man, he was evidently a laborer, reached out a hard hand and grasped the hand of the rector.

"You're all right!" he exclaimed. "But you're the first preacher I ever heard say as much as that. Most of 'em side the other way; or else they hedge, and won't say nothin'. Where do you preach?"

"At Christ Church."

"Oh, I've heard about you. I don't go to church much myself, but I'm comin' some Sunday to hear you