"Yes, I know," said Randolph. "You have mother and sister both, but you haven't lived with them for years. If you don't actually live in the same house with women you can't know them. Of course even then you may be in the dark on a point or two, as I was on the money question, but you can soon learn. All a woman wants is fair treatment. If a man drinks and makes a beast of himself or sulks around in place of telling her what he don't like and letting her change it, of course she isn't going to be happy. It's easy as rolling off a log to manage a woman." Loveland rose and thrust the poker down through the top crust of the fire and left it standing there. "As far as management goes," Randolph went on unheedingly, "leaving morality, and expense, and all that out of the question, I'd just as soon turn Mormon and marry forty women." Here Loveland stabbed the fire clear through the body, bringing the poker out on the under side and against the hearth with a force that bent its glowing point. "The stew's done," he said. "We'll dish up now." This little scene, or rather the conversation that seasoned the stew, soon faded from Randolph's memory, but it lingered in the mind of his companion. Men like the latter, little given to speech, are apt to turn and re-turn in thought what has been said to them, and therefore do not easily forget. Several weeks after this the two men sat on the bachelor hearth once more; Loveland in his usual quiet mood and Chance smarting from a recent wound. He had begun to feel that his position was almost secure with Miss Leigh, but that day, on the occasion of a picnic at which he had amused himself by trifling with a silly young girl, he was amazed, mortified, and hurt by receiving the cold shoulder when he proffered his company to Miss Leigh on the way home. His friend's hospitable hearth had more than once proven a refuge and a solace. It was so to-night, and Randolph began to take heart again as he settled back in his comfortable chair in the ingle-nook and watched the hanging of the oyster stew upon the crane. For a time the gentle simmering of the appetizing dish was the only sound to be heard. Randolph did not feel like talking or even listening, and his companion knew how to hold his peace.