"That," said Vox, "is the greatest compliment a man can have. Sweezy there has no more music in him than a horse; but see! we have woven the spell about him. I believe we do sing well together. What couldn't we do if we would practise together? Now I will keep this pledge for you, Downs, if you will promise to come every day at twelve and sing with me. We will lunch together, and I will see that you don't get a drop to drink." "I can't." "Why not?" "I have engaged to go to work." "Where?" "Enlisted." "What! Enlisted? To throw yourself away again?" Vox gripped the arms of Downs as if he were a prisoner. "Where have you enlisted?" "In the street-sweeping brigade." "Great guns!" said Vox. "No, great brooms!" replied his friend. "I need outdoor work; there I will get it. I need to keep away from other men; and on the street I will be left to my own company as nicely as if I were a hermit. Besides, there will be a poetic fitness in one who has lived so dirty a life as I have giving himself up to the work of cleaning things. Then, too, I can see life; and that will be interesting. Nothing is so fascinating to one who has had my experience as the sight of a crowd, if only one can himself keep out of it." With that Downs sang: "'Hurry along, sorrow and song; All is vanity under the sun. Velvet and rags: so the world wags, Until the river no more shall run.'" Vox readily upset the street-sweeping project by showing Downs how he could be helpful to him in certain musical matters he had on foot, and even guaranteed to turn over to him several of his pupils who were trying to develop tenor voices. The next Sunday night after service the doctor took the singer's arm at the church door with his usual chirpy invitation, "Come, Phil, don't let Mrs. Cupp's pepper and mustard get cold, or the cheese get away from us." "Walk around the block with me first, doctor; I've got something to tell you which I'd rather you would hear when you can't see my face." "Why, what have you been doing now that you are ashamed of, Phil? Oh, I know. You have proposed to the soprano, or been perpetrating some other trick on your bachelor friends. I'll forgive you at the start, however, because"--lowering his voice until there was a frog in it--"because I know something about--but it's none of your business, Phil, so I won't tell you anything about it. No disappointment, my boy?" "No." "Then count on me to marry you for nothing, and throw in the benediction besides." "It's no love-affair," said Vox. "Cupid might as well break his arrows on a rhinoceros as shoot at me. It's that drunken fellow. I've been awfully taken in." "What! has he turned up? Fleeced you again?" "Well, not exactly fleeced me, but scorched me; he has heaped coals of fire on my head. I want to take back all I have said against him, and everything I said against slumming."