'High-brow company! Seems to me the pair of you ought to be silencers for a plain business man like me. Rubber is my line--not how the world is run. My opinion on that is small change, sure. Yet I think it ought to be run,--the world, I mean,--even if it's mussed-up to the limit, and I think it's up to us to keep it running. The parson here--if he is a parson--asks why we should; that is, if I get him. And then I think there's a manager of it all in the central office--a manager, understand, though he never seems to show up around the works, and certainly does seem to have some of the darnedest ways. The professor here--if he is a professor--doesn't sense any manager; that is, if I get him straight, with his "if there were any." That was what you said, wasn't it? I'm a picked chicken on religion and education, but, honest, both those ideas would mean soft tires for me--yes, sir, soft tires.' 'Broad Street, gentlemen,' said the porter at the door. * * * * * The Reverend Allan Dare walked away from the train and down the street. He was Episcopally faced and Episcopally trim, and he was having considerable difficulty in holding his universe together. This is not pleasant at forty-two, when you want your universe held together and things settled and calm. He had an uncomfortable sense that this difficulty had jolted into plain sight on the car. 'Ass!' he addressed himself briefly. 'To let your sag and unsettlement loose in that way! To say such a thing as you said, and in such a place! To parade your momentary distrust of life! Ass--oh, ass!' He said--or thought--a Prayer-Book collect, one which seemed rather suited to asses, and continued,-- 'I suppose I'm three-tenths sag--no more; and "He knoweth whereof we are made," and what a devil of a world it is to be in just now. But that rubber man on the car--he isn't sag at all. Heavens, his crudeness! His beastly clothes, and the bare shaved welt around the back of his neck, and that awful seal ring! But he's fastened. Life is worth pushing at and cheering for--and there's a manager, if he _has_ "the darnedest ways." I'd give something for an every-minute mood like that--a carrying night-and-day sureness like that. He's not illuminated--lucky dog!' Professor William Emory Browne had changed cars and was continuing his journey. In his lap lay a volume of essays just put forth by a member of his craft, a college professor. He opened it,--it chanced at page 27,--and his eye was caught by the name of his own specialty. He read:-- 'Philosophy is the science which proves that we can know nothing of the soul. Medicine is the science which tells that we know nothing of the body. Political Economy is that which teaches that we know nothing of the laws of wealth; and Theology the critical history of those errors from which we deduce our ignorance of God.' 'Confound it!' ejaculated Professor Browne, and closed the book.