of love and labored in a thousand ways to make them happy. He would have a long talk with Helen. He would put the whole thing clearlyAnd on the heels of his thought, the front door snapped shut. Faintly, he heard excited talking downstairs; then footsteps pattered toward him with a click-clack that announced high French heels.

"Da-ad! Dad!"

"Coming," he answered.

But before he had time to go to the door, a radiant vision in summery white flew into the room and almost strangled him in an embrace of soft, warm arms.

"Oh, daddy! I'm the happiest girl in all the world! Look!"

I

N spite of himself, David Pritchard was drawn into an exclamation at sight of the great, sparkling diamond she proudly exhibited. It certainly was big enough and brilliant. Such a ring must have cost. His eyes traveled to his daughter's round, smooth face and were held by her own glorious eyes that glowed with a new light. Their radiance fairly dazzled him and quite obliterated his previously formed intention to have a long talk, to explain matters, to point out the foolishness of marrying a man like Robert Gilmore. Instead, he took his very young, very pretty daughter in his arms and kissed her.

"Are you sure you love him, Helen?"

"Dad! What a question! He's wonderful! He says-oh-the nicest things! And everybody else thinks so much of him. You ought to see how every one down at the bank shook hands with him and congratulated him. The president told me I ought to be a very happy woman with such a man. Why don't you like him?"

"Wha--what? Why-why I do like him,

Helen."

“Oh, daddy, that's a whopper! You know you don't. And you can't fool me. I felt it all along."

"Nonsense. It's your imagination. I've got nothing against the young man. Moreover, if he makes you happy- Come now! There's mother calling. We'd better go down stairs."

Somehow, David Pritchard managed to get through that day and the Sunday that followed. Numberless thoughts seethed through his mind; grievances poisonously brooded in his soul; and silent revolts at the irony of fate tore at his consciousness. Wasn't it just like the very contrariness of things for him to lose his job just when he needed it most?

What was he to do now? Where was there a

place for a man approaching middle age? Most men, at his time of life, were busy reaping the profits of a useful business career. They weren't rushing about trying to find new jobs. How could he hope to compete with the energetic youngsters who were everywhere bucking the game? He was used up. He was old. He ought to be sitting in a rocker on his front porch, living on the interest of his savings. Where could he turn first?

Monday morning came, and sheer force of habit drew him from his bed at seven o'clock. He had not yet told Evie, his wife, that he had been dismissed; so when he came downstairs, his breakfast was, as usual, ready for him. Silently he ate, then rose, kissed Evie, and departed. With his accustomed precision, he snapped the front gate and started down the street at the same regular stride that brought him, within three-quarters of an hour, to the Winthrop Hardware Works. And so perfectly, so automatically, did habit perform its function, that he had almost turned in at the door when he checked himself with a start and realized that he no longer belonged here.

He crossed the street and sat on the steps of a brownstone house, lifting his eyes to the great, white factory. How tall a building it was! How many windows it had! Never before had he realized what an imposing structure was this place where he had spent the better part of his years. Up to now it had been but a large door through which he had passed twice a day. Hẹ had never stood off and viewed it. He had lost his perspective. He was like the forester who is so engrossed in clearing the small road before him, that he fails to grasp the beauty of the great woods that surround him.

W

HAT were those words above the door? Industria et Progressia. That meant industry and progress. Funny that he had never noted them before. Dully, he wondered whether the other workers had ever thought of their meaning. As he stared at those words, a shade went up in the building and the blonde head of Miss Newcomb, the secretary, appeared at the window for an instant.

What an enigma she was! In his day no one ever saw women like her in such positions. She dressed like a fashion plate, with a subdued elegance that befitted women of high station. Her nails were always glisteningly polished, her face carefully powdered to present at all times an appearance of freshness, and her hair smooth, sleek, and artistically coifed. Yet she worked with the efficiency and smoothness of a welloiled machine.

And the men-the new men in the works— were just like her. When David Pritchard had been a young workingman, he went off in the morning in a third-best suit with his luncheon in a parcel under his arm. But these workersthese bumptious, new hustlers-when you saw them starting off to work, you thought they were bank presidents. And when they came back, they were just as immaculate. What a world-what a world this was!

For a whole week, David Pritchard sat off and regarded the factory that had been his aim every day for twenty years. In that week he learned a good many things about the Winthrop Hardware Works that he hadn't known before. In that week he learned, too, what it is to go about with a heavy heart that grew heavier with each passing day. He learned what it is to smile, to rejoice in Helen's good fortune, to feign enthusiasm before his wife, when all the time he was inwardly sick with too much gnawing.

Another Monday morning came around, and as he made his way to the brownstone house, he was surprised to find someone else sitting in his accustomed place.

"Well-why-Holden! You too?”
"Me too."
"When?"

"Saturday. Just found a slip of paper telling me my services were no longer required. There was a note, however, which suggested that I work in some other factory for a while and return here in about six months."

“H

-M," grunted David Pritchard. "Kind suggestion. More than I got. I was just told to get! Ah, Holden, if old man Winthrop knew what was going on. That's always the way. A man works all his life to build something big for his sons, and when he dies, they run it promptly to ruin."

"You said something then, Pritchard! But all the same I didn't expect such a raw deal from Junior. I can't help thinking that he always was sort of decent about things."

"Decent?" David Pritchard almost shrieked the word. "Do you call it decent to fire men who have worked for you a lifetime? Do you call it decent to throw a man out after he's given his best years to make you rich? That's what he's done. I can't see anything decent in that!"

And so, with a renewed recital of grievances, the second week of David Pritchard's inactivity began to wear away. And then, one night, just as he had recalled with a sort of pang that he wouldn't be able to give Evie fifty dollars

this Saturday, he took a different path homea path that lay through the park where congregated all the work-worn men, the failures, the shiftless, the cynics, and the railers against fate.

Only two weeks previous, he had regarded these idlers with impatient contempt. Often, as their querulous plaints reached his ears, he had a wild desire to grab hold of them and shake them into activity. He had wanted to yell at them, "Stop bemoaning your fate! Get up and work! Make the world give you what you want!"

Y

ET now, as he caught snatches of conversation, it came to him with driving force that he was just like these men. For almost two weeks he too, had lived in a realm of past accomplishments. Day in and day out, he had let a grievance get the better of him, had let it sap the ambition from him and make of him a sour, mean thing.

He looked down at his feet and noted how he ambled along, almost aimlessly. What had become of his firm stride, of his erect carriage, of the poise of his head, of his clear gaze? In less than two weeks he had aged years. At forty-five he was an old man—just like these spineless creatures of the benches.

How could he ever have let himself believe such a thing? Why he, himself, knew dozens of men who were just accomplishing things at fifty! At fifty, old man Winthrop had seen his first big factory take form. At fifty-why, most of the really big statesmen, builders, writers, had achieved their greatest triumphs at fifty. It was an age of victory-not of failures!

Would he be a failure at forty-five? Would he fail Helen at her wedding? Would he be tortured by the knowledge that his only child must look back on the greatest moment of her life with a pang of hurt? Would he give that self-assured Robert a chance to reproach her with the fact that her father had let her go without a proper outfit, without a big wedding, without sufficient money to prove that she had not come to her husband quite penniless?

And Evie? Would he have to subject her to hardships all over again? Now, when she was all worn out with years of worrying, of saving, of pinching to pay for the house, would he have to make her start all over again? Perhaps they would have to mortgage the house and take in a roomer or two

He couldn't! He couldn't. It wasn't right. He wouldn't have it so. There must be a way out. He'd find a way out! If he had to battle against a whole world; if he had to get things by sheer force; if he had to step over everything

that stood in his way; he would get what he wanted! He would wring it out by every effort known to man. He'd show that upstart Winthrop! He'd

show him whether he could put him out by just -firing him.

There flashed across his mind a picture of himself at thirteen-fighting with the leader of an opposing gang. He could hear himself gasping for breath, delivering blows that grew weaker and weaker while his assailant gained in strength. And then he saw the other members of his opponent's gang coming toward him, and out of sheer frenzy he delivered a blow that all but killed in its fury.

He was up against the wall then. He was up against it now. Well-by Heaven!

David Pritchard did not go back the next day to sit with Pat Holden and talk about the old days. Instead, he went to the bank and drew two hundred dollars.

"Evie," he said to his wife, "Here's some

But - - - I

money. The firm's sending me to Buffalo for a few months. I'll send you more from. there."

"But-but Dave. What about Helen?

You know they are planning to be married in just about two months."

"I'll be back. Don't you worry. Our Helen won't go to the altar without me. I'll send her some money to buy things, too. Now-" "Dave, do you know you've never been away from home in twenty-"

"I know. I know. But it can't be helped. Now be a good scout, old lady. Don't make it too hard for me to go."

Arrived in Buffalo, he made his way to the Winthrop Hardware Works No. 3, and nosed about for an opening. He knew that he could not apply for a position where too much would be asked about his previous experience. He must start where the pinch for help was most acute, where a ready arm would be welcomed (Continued on page 112)