There was a short pause. Then he asked: "Can't you get work?" It was a hopeless question to put to a man in a town of over two thousand idle men. The answer was what he knew it would be: "Work! Can I pick up a bushel of gold in the street out there? Can a man get work where there ain't any?" "What have you been doing?" "I was fireman in the Lake Mills. Good job. Lost it when they closed down last winter." "What have you been doing since?" "Anything I could get." "Are you a married man?" The question affected the other strangely. He trembled all over, put his head between his knees, and out of his heart's anguish flowed the words, "I had a wife. She's dead--of consumption. I had a little girl. She's dead, too. Thank God!" exclaimed the man, with a change from a sob to a curse. "Thank God!--and curses on all rich men who had it in their power to prevent the hell on earth for other people, and which they will feel for themselves in the other world!" Philip did not say anything for some time. What could any man say to another at once under such circumstances? Finally he said: "What will you do with money if I give you some?" "I don't want your money," replied the man. "I thought you did a little while ago." "It was the mill-owner's money I wanted. You're the preacher, ain't you up at Calvary Church?" "Yes. How did you know?" "I've seen you. Heard you preach once. I never thought I should come to this--holding up a preacher down here!" And the man laughed a hard, short laugh. "Then you're not----" Philip hardly knew how to say it. He wanted to say that the man was not connected in any way with the saloon element; "you're driven to this desperate course on your own account? The reason I ask is because I have been threatened by the whiskey men, and at first I supposed you were one of their men." "No, sir," was the answer, almost in disgust. "I may be pretty bad, but I've not got so low as that." "Then your only motive was hunger?" "That was all. Enough, ain't it?" "We can't discuss the matter here," said Philip. He hesitated, rose, and stood there looking at the man who sat now with his head resting on his arms, which were folded across his knees. Two or three persons came out of a street near by and walked past. Philip knew them and said good-evening. They thought he was helping some drunken man, a thing he had often done, and they went along without stopping. Again the street was deserted. "What will you do now? Where will you go?" "God knows. I am an outcast on His earth!" "Have you no home?" "Home! Yes; the gutter, the street, the bottom of the river." "My brother!" Philip laid his hand on the man's shoulder, "come home with me, have something to eat, and stay with me for a while." The man looked up and stared at Philip through the semi-darkness.