"No," says he, shruggin' his shoulders, "that wouldn't do at all. I suppose I've come on a fool's errand. Kronacher, we'll go back." "That's too bad," says I, "if you had business with Bobby that was on the level." "Since you've been so kind," says he, "perhaps you would give me your opinion--if I am not detaining you?" "Spiel away!" says I. "I'll own up you've got me some interested." Well, say, when he'd described his visit as a dippy excursion, he wa'n't far off. Seems that this Rev. Sam Hooker ain't a reg'lar preacher, with a stained glass window church, a steam heated parsonage, and a settled job. He's sort of a Gospel promoter, that goes around plantin' churches here and there,--home missionary, he calls it, though I always thought a home missionary was one that was home from China on a half-pay visit. Mainly he says he drifts around through the coke oven and glass works district, where all the Polackers and other dagoes work. He don't let it go with preachin' to 'em, though. He pokes around among their shacks, seein' how they live, sendin' doctors for sick babies, givin' the women folks hints on the use of fresh air and hard soap, an' advisin' 'em to keep their kids in school. He's one of them strenuous chaps, too, that believes in stirrin' up a fuss whenever he runs across anything he thinks is wrong. One of the fights he's been making is something about the boys in the glass works. "Perhaps you have heard of our efforts to have a child labor bill passed in our State?" says he. "No," says I; "but I'm against it. There's enough kids has to answer the mill whistle, without passin' laws to make 'em." Then he explains how the bill is to keep 'em from goin' at it too young, or workin' too many hours on a stretch. Course, I'm with him on that, and says so. "Ah!" says he. "Then you may be interested to learn that young Mr. Rankin is the most extensive employer of child labor in our State. That is what I want to talk to him about." "Ever see Bobby?" says I. He says he hasn't. "Know anything of his habits, and so on?" I asks. "Not a thing," says the Rev. Sam. "Then you take it from me," says I, "that you ain't missed much." See? I couldn't go all over that record of Bobby Brut's, specially to a preacher. Not that Bobby was the worst that ever cruised around the Milky Way in a sea goin' cab with his feet over the dasher; but he was something of a torrid proposition while he lasted. You remember some of his stunts, maybe? I hadn't kept strict tabs on him; but I'd heard that after they chucked him out of the sanatorium his mother planted him here, with a man nurse and a private doctor, and slid off to Europe to stay with her son-in-law Count until folks forgot about Bobby. And this was the youth the Rev. Mr. Hooker had come to have a heart to heart talk with! "Ain't you takin' a lot of trouble, just for a few Polackers?" says I. "They are my brothers," says he, quiet like. "What!" says I. "You don't look it."