“We do have very sociable times,” Dick told the Doctor a month later. “That little woman and I seem made for each other. She’s just the right sort. We never have no fusses, and things go so comfortable-like all the time.” “And how do you like the other party? There’s a man there also, I see. How do you like him?” Dick flushed painfully, and a deep frown settled on his face. There was a man whom he saw from time to time sitting at the window after the dinner hour reading his paper. But the moment he made his appearance, Dick closed his eyes or left the window seat. He regarded the man as an intruder--a shadow upon his home life, a serpent in his Eden. Sunday was a day of restlessness and discontent, because the man was there all day long, and on Sundays he avoided the invalid-chair, which was his seat on all other days. Now, when he heard Dr. Griffin speak of the man as a real being, he suffered all the bitter and mortifying pangs of jealousy which might come to a man who hears a stranger give words to a suspicion of his wife’s disloyalty to which he has striven to blind himself. “A man--a--yes--there’s a man there sometimes,” Dick stammered; “he’s a--a sort of poor relative, don’t you know. One of my relations, you see, and I can’t very well turn him off.” “Oh, I see,” answered the Doctor, noticing Dick’s confusion and hastening to help him out. “Well, everybody has some one of that sort. I’ve half a dozen poor relatives who live on me. Some one of them is with us most of the time. A little uncomfortable occasionally may be, because every man’s house is his castle where he wants to be alone at times. But we who have homes have no right to be selfish; we must share them with less fortunate people. Happiness must not make us selfish.” Dick’s face brightened. His heart had grown light and happy while the Doctor spoke. “That’s just what I tell myself and the little woman,” he said. “Often she doesn’t like to have the fellow droppin’ in and spoilin’ our chats” (Dick felt an immense satisfaction in saying this), “but I tell her with just our two selves we’d get selfish with happiness unless we had somethin’ to do for another. But he does break up our Sundays awfully--scarcely can get a word alone, that fellow’s pokin’ around so.” “Oh, well, you can afford him one day in the week, and I wouldn’t let him bother me; just be as happy as if he wasn’t around.” Somehow Dick felt much better after this talk. He had tried to ignore the presence of the man opposite, but now he could acknowledge it, and definitely locate the man in his thought as a poor dependent, who was benefitted by his bounty. He enjoyed thinking that the little woman objected more or less to the fellow, and that she allowed him so much liberty only to please Dick. As the weeks rolled on he confessed to the Doctor that the fellow was really useful at times. “Rainy days he goes to market for the little woman,” he said, “and often runs out on errands for us.”