Then he told me of Mr. Leigh and his work in trying to secure better service for the public, better tenements--better conditions generally. "But they have defeated him," he said bitterly. "They turned him out of his directorship--or, at least, he got out--and are fighting him at every turn. They will destroy him, if possible. They almost have him beat now. Well, it is nothing to me," he added with a shrug of his shoulders and a sort of denial of the self-made suggestion. "He is but an individual victim of a rotten system that must go." My mind had drifted to the conference which I had witnessed in McSheen's office not long before, when suddenly Wolffert said, "Your old friend, Peck, appears to have gotten up. I judge he is very successful--after his kind." "Yes, it would seem so," I said dryly, with a sudden fleeting across my mind of a scene from the past, in which not Peck figured, but one who now bore his name; and a slightly acrid taste came in my mouth at the recollection. "Well, up or down, he is the same," I added. "He is a serpent," said Wolffert. "You remember how he tried to make us kill each other?" "Yes, and what a fool I made of myself." "No, no. He was at the bottom of it. He used to come and tell me all the things you said and--didn't say. He made a sore spot in my heart and kept it raw. He's still the same--reptile." "Have you seen him?" I asked. He leaned back and rested his eyes on me. "Yes, he took the trouble to hunt me up a day or two ago, and for some reason went over the whole thing again. What's McSheen to him?" "I shall break his neck some day, yet," I observed quietly. "You know I write," he said explanatorily. "He wanted me to write something about you." "About me?" "Yes." "What a deep-dyed scoundrel he is!" "Yes, he wanted to enlist me on the McSheen side, but--" his eyes twinkled. "Where do you go to church?" he suddenly asked me. I told him, and I thought he smiled possibly at what I feared was a little flush in my face. "To 'St. Mammon's!' Why don't you go to hear John Marvel? He is the real thing." "John Marvel? Where is he?" "Not far from where you say you live. He preaches out there--to the poor." "In a chapel?" I inquired. "Everywhere where he is," said Wolffert, quietly. "What sort of a preacher is he?" "The best on earth, not with words, but with deeds. His life is his best sermon." I told him frankly why I had not gone, though I was ashamed, for we had grown confidential in our talk. But Wolffert assured me that John Marvel would never think of anything but the happiness of meeting me again. "He is a friend whom God gives to a man once in his lifetime," he said, as he took his leave. "Cherish such an one. His love surpasseth the love of women." "Has he improved?" I asked.