Page:They're a multitoode (1900).djvu/19

 "it comes on top of finding you running the machine. My nerves are all gone."

A clergyman who coughed gave liberally.

"If I could have guessed that he was coming," said Christy, with chagrin, "I would have covered the thing up. Some men can no more pass a collection basket than a drunkard can a corner saloon. But they are few."

A hard-headed merchant furtively dropped in a gold piece.

"I got it in change," he apologized, when he met Christy's gaze. "It is as well to make some special use of it before I pay it out for a quarter."

A circuit judge lifted the box in his hand and read the verses as Christy had done. When he set it down again he stood before it in silence while Christy looked up, wondering, and did not disturb him.

At last the judge aroused himself. He made a large donation.

"My daughter was interested in all these things," he said. Christy remembered then the young girl who had died the year before.

In one way and another, Jim Perry's missionary box grew heavy. Then it was full.

Christy took it apart, put the money in a pigeon-hole in his desk and set it back into place. He did not allow himself to comment.

On the same afternoon, Chippy Black, the errand boy, was waiting in the office for a note. Chippy was a new boy; Christy did not feel sure of him. Lifting