Now they had come to a place where there were several vacant lots. Some one had given the lots to the town and there was a movement on foot to raise money with which to build a public library. A man had come to John Webster to ask him to contribute to a fund for the purpose. That was but a few days ago. He had enjoyed the situation immensely. Now he felt like giggling over the remembrance of it. He had been seated, and as he thought, looking very dignified, at his desk in the factory office when the man came in and told him of the plan. A desire to make an ironic gesture had taken possession of him. “I am making rather elaborate plans about that fund and my contributing to it but do not want to say what I am planning to do at this particular moment,” he had announced. What a falsehood! The matter had not interested him in the least. He had simply enjoyed the man’s surprise at his unexpected interest and was having a good time making a swaggering gesture. The man who came to see him had once served with him on a committee of the Chamber of Commerce, a committee appointed to make an effort to bring new industries into the town. “I didn’t know you were specially interested in literary matters,” the man had said. A troop of derisive thoughts had popped into John Webster’s head. “O, you would be surprised,” he had assured the man. At the moment he had felt as he fancied a terrier might feel as it worried a rat. “I think American literary men have done wonders to uplift the people,” he had said, very solemnly. “Why, do you realize that it is our writers who have kept us constantly reminded of the moral code and of the virtues? Such men as you and I, who own factories and who are in a way responsible for the happiness and welfare of the people of the community, cannot be too grateful to our American literary men. I’ll tell you what, they are really such strong, red-blooded fellows, always standing up for the right.” John Webster laughed at the thought of his talk with the man from the Chamber of Commerce and at the remembrance of the confused look in the man’s eyes as he went away. Now, as he and Natalie walked along, the intersecting streets led away to the east. There was no doubt a new day was coming. He stopped to light a match and look at his watch. They would be just in comfortable time for the train. Soon now they would be coming into the business section of town where they would both have to make a clattering noise as they walked on stone pavements, but then it would not matter. People did not sleep in the business sections of towns.