He tilted his chair back against the wall, and looked out of the window. Pippin had been much in his mind since their parting two months before. This was the second letter he had received from him. The first had been written within a week of Pippin's leaving Shoreham, and told of his finding Nipper Crewe dying by the roadside, and of the wheel that he considered rightly his. That was a singular meeting, the chaplain thought. The old sinner, full of evil deeds and memories, suspected of many crimes large and small, yet so crafty withal and so passionately bent on keeping out of prison that for the most part he had succeeded. The chaplain shook his head, recalling one inmate and another, who, shaking an impotent fist, choking with rage, had told how after the "deal" for which he was "pinched," Nipper, the instigator of it, had slipped quietly off under the very noses of the police. While his mate and dupe was there, raging and choking, Nipper would be roaming the country at large with his wheel, grinding more or less, observing a great deal, planning the next neat little job. Yes, Nipper was a bad one! And strange to think of Pippin's being chosen to comfort the old sinner in his last hour and inherit the wheel that had been an innocent _particeps criminis_ in so many "deals"! Well, Pippin could comfort him if anyone could, thought the chaplain. Still looking out of the window, he let his thoughts run back to the day--could it be two years ago? It seemed hardly more than as many months--when he first saw Pippin. His first Sunday as prison chaplain! He had accepted the call because it seemed right; a new hand seemed needed--his thoughts ran off the track, as other visions came crowding in; he brought them back with an effort. He felt anew, with almost the same shock of strangeness, the first impression of seeing his new flock in chapel that day. The rows on rows of faces, sharp or lowering, weak or silly or vacant, degenerate or sodden, a few that were actually vicious--they were seldom _really_ vicious, his poor boys. Suddenly a head lifted, and he saw the face as of a strayed seraph; then presently heard the voice, as of the same seraph at home, singing. The chaplain broke into a little laugh. Let the bright seraphim in burning row-- That line came insistently to his mind whenever he heard Pippin sing; yet he knew perfectly well that Milton's seraphim were not singing, but blowing their loud uplifted angel trumpets. Perhaps--perhaps voices and trumpets were more alike there?--Anyhow, Pippin's voice had a trumpet note in certain hymns that he specially loved.