"I got over that nonsense," said John easily. "Sorry to hear you’ve been having trouble in your little church." "It’s been a mighty sad case," sighed the Elder, heaving his ponderous bosom and mopping his red brow and scalp, for the removal of his hat revealed that his iron-gray hair was only a fringe. "By the way," asked John, who was contemplating the bulletin board, "what about the Sunday school? I see it’s down for nine forty-five." "Dwindled to a handful of children," declared Burbeck, as if a handful of children was something entirely negligible. John had a reason for feeling especially tender where the feelings of children were concerned. "But they’ll come next Sunday, and they’ll be terribly disappointed," he urged. "It will shake their faith in God himself. They won’t understand at all, will they?" "I reckon they will when they see the church nailed up," answered Burbeck grimly, quite too triumphant over spiking an enemy’s guns to consider the mystified, wondering soul of childhood as it might stand before that nailed door four mornings forward from this, for the day of the crucifixion of the door was Wednesday. Their task completed, the Elder and the Evangelist were turning toward the street. "Good-by, Brother," said Harding, again shaking hands. "Oh, good-by, Brother Hampstead," exclaimed Burbeck, turning as if he had forgotten something, and offering his stout, once sinewy palm. John gave it a grip that shook the huge frame of Elder Burbeck, and made him feel, as he seldom felt about any man, that here was a personality and a physical force at least as vigorous as his own. "Good-by, Brother Burbeck," John responded, with an open smile; and then while the two men took themselves down the street in the direction of the car line, the book-agent went back and sat contemplatively in the park. It was a marvelously pleasant day. A few fleecy clouds were drifting overhead, revealing patches of the unrivaled blue of California’s sky above them. The sun shone warmly when the clouds were not in the way, and when they were, the lazy breeze made its breath seem cooler and more bracing, as if to compensate for the absence. Down the street two or three blocks Hampstead could see the Bay waters dancing in the sunlight. The cottages on both sides of the park were embowered with vines, roses mostly, white roses and red, with here and there a giant bougainvillea, some of its lavender, clusterlike flowers abloom, and some of them still sealed in their transparent pods that looked like envelopes of isinglass. High in the blue an occasional pigeon circled; off to the left a kite appeared, sailing high, and bounding vigorously when the upper air currents freshened. On John’s own level, the world was faring onward very happily.