A caller had just come stumbling in out of the November murk, half blind with weariness and unhappiness and general discouragement. Brown had welcomed him heartily.
"It's nothing in particular," growled the other man, presently, "and it's everything. I'm down and out."
"Lost your job?"
"No, but I'm going to lose it."
"How do you know?"
"Every thing points that way."
"What, for instance?"
"Oh--I can't tell you, so you'd understand."
"Am I so thick-headed?" Brown asked the question seriously. His eyes, keen, yet full of sympathetic interest, rested inquiringly upon his caller's face.
"It's in the air, that's all I can say. I wouldn't be surprised to be fired any minute--after eight years' service. And--it's got on my nerves so I can't do decent work, even to keep up my own self-respect till I do go. And what I'm to do afterward--"
Brown was silent, looking into the fire. His caller shifted in his chair; he had shifted already a dozen times since he sat down. His nervous hands gripped the worn arms of the rocker restlessly, unclosing only to take fresh hold, until the knuckles shone white.
"There's the wife," said Brown presently.
The caller groaned aloud in his unhappiness.
"And the kiddies."
"God! Yes."
"I meant to mention Him," said Brown, in a quietly matter-of-fact way. "I'm glad you thought of Him. He's in this situation, too."
The caller's brow grew black. "That's one thing I came to say to you: I'm through with all that. No use to give me any of it. I don't believe in it--that's all."
Brown considered him, apparently not in the least shocked. The caller's clothes were very nearly shabby, certainly ill-kept. His shoes had not been blackened that day. He needed a hair-cut. His sensitive, thin face was sallow, and there were dark circles under his moody eyes.
Brown got up and went out by a door which opened beside the chimney-piece into the room behind, which was his kitchen. He stirred about there for some time, then he invited Jennings out. There were crisply fried bacon and eggs, and toast and steaming coffee ready for the two men--Brown's cookery.
They sat down, and Brown bowed his head.
His companion did not bow his but he dropped his eyes, letting his glance rest upon the bacon.
"
Lord" said Brown simply, "
we ask Thy blessing on this food. Give us food for our souls, as well. We need it. Amen."
Then he looked up at the caller. "Pitch in, Jennings," said he, and set the example.
For a man who professed to have had his supper Jennings did pretty well.
When the meal was over Brown sent Jennings back to the fireside while he himself washed the dishes. When he rejoined his visitor Jennings looked up with a sombre face.
"Life's just what that card a fellow tacked up in the office one day says it is:--'
one damned thing after another,'" he asserted grimly. "There's no use trying to see any good in it all."
Brown looked up quickly. Into his eyes leaped a sudden look of understanding, and of more than understanding--anger with something, or some one. But his voice was quiet.
"So somebody's put that card up in your office, too. I wonder how many of them there are tacked up in offices all over the country."
"A good many, I guess."
"I suppose every time you look up at it, it convinces you all over again," remarked Brown. He picked up the poker, and leaning forward began to stir the fire.
"I don't need convincing. I know it--I've experienced it. God!--I've had reason to."
"If you don't believe in Him"--Brown was poking vigorously now--"why bring Him into the conversation?"
Jennings laughed--a short, ugly laugh. "That sounds like you, always putting a fellow in a corner. I use the word, I suppose, to--"
"To give force to what you say? It does it, in a way. But it's not the way you use it when you address Him, is it?"
"I don't address Him." Jennings's tone was defiant.
Brown continued lightly to poke the fire. "About that card," said he. "I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible for putting down and out."
Jennings stared. "Oh, it's just a joke. I laughed the first time I saw it."
"And the second time?"
"I don't remember. The fellows were all laughing over it when it first came out."
"It
was a clever thing, a tremendously clever thing, for a man to think of saying. There's so much humour in it. To a man who happened to be already feeling that way, one can see just how it would cheer him up, give him courage, brace him to take a fresh hold."
Jennings grunted. "Oh, well; if you're going to take every joke with such deadly seriousness--"
"You took it lightly, did you? It's seemed like a real joke to you? It's grown funnier and funnier every day, each time it caught your eye?"
But now Jennings groaned. "No, it hasn't. But that's because it's too true to keep on seeming funny."
Brown suddenly brought his fist down on the arm of Jennings's rocker with a thump which made his nerve-strung visitor jump in his chair. "It
isn't true! It's not the saying of a brave man, it's the whine of a coward. Brave men don't say that sort of thing. The sort of thing they do say--sometimes to other men, oftener to themselves alone--is what a famous Englishman said: '
If you do fight, fight it out; and don't give in while you can stand and see!' How's that for a motto? If that had been tacked on the wall in your office all this while, would it have made you feel like giving up, every time you looked at it?"
Brown's eyes were glowing. Jennings had slumped down in his chair, his head on his hand, his face partly hidden from his host. There was silence in the room.
Brown kept Jennings overnight, making a bed for him on his couch, where he could see the fire. As Jennings sat on the couch, ready to turn in, Brown came out from his bedroom, a long figure in his bathrobe and slippers, and knelt down before the old rocking-chair. Jennings, in his surprise, sat perfectly still, looking at him. He could see Brown's lean, strong face in profile, the fine head--it was a very fine head, though perhaps Jennings did not appreciate that--a little lifted, the eyes closed. Brown prayed in a conversational tone, as if the One he addressed were in the room above, with an opening between.
Then he rose, a little tender smile on his face, said, "Good-night, old man," and went away into the inner room--the door of which he did not close.
What did he leave behind him? What was in the air? Was this a common room, a homely room, lighted only by a smoldering fire? What was it which suddenly and unaccountably gripped George Jennings's heart, so that a sob rose in his throat? What made him want to cry, like a schoolboy, with his head on his arms? With all his long misery, tears had never once come to his relief. His heart had been hard and his eyes dry. Now, somehow, he felt something give way.
* * * * *
Jennings slept all night, and came out to breakfast with a queer, shamefaced aspect, yet with considerably less heaviness of foot than he had shown the night before. He ate heartily, as well he might, for the food was extremely appetizing. When he got up to go he stood still by his chair, seeming to be trying to say something. Seeing this, Brown came over to him and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, lad?" said he interrogatively. He was smiling and the smile transformed his face, as always.
"I--feel better, this morning," stammered Jennings. "I--want to thank you. I'm ashamed of the way I talked last night. It was as you said. I knew better, but I couldn't seem to--to--"
Brown nodded. "Of course you knew better," he said heartily. "We all know better. Every man prays--at some time or other. It's when we stop praying that things get dark. Begin again, and something happens. It
always happens. And sometimes the thing that happens is that we get a good sleep and are able to see things differently in the morning. Good-bye--and come back to-night."
"Shall I?" Jennings asked eagerly.
"Surely. We'll have oysters to-night, roasted on the half-shell over the coals in the fireplace. Like 'em?"
"I never ate any that way," admitted Jennings. "It sounds good." And he smiled broadly, a real smile at last.
"Wait till you try them," promised Brown.