They passed a colliery a little way from the station and the visitors turned in the rumbling omnibus to look at the blackened walls of the roaring breaker. And they saw, driving his mule team soberly into the colliery yard, a man whose figure at once arrested their attention. Wayne Craighill, bronzed, bearded, clad in jumper and overalls, a cap on the back of his head, had finished his day’s work, and was returning his team to the colliery stables. The pilgrims stared in silence; then they turned toward each other slowly. Wingfield’s face, as usual, expressed no emotion; Walsh grunted “Um” and craned his neck to get a last view of the disappearing teamster through the rear door of the ’bus. His thin lips smiled a trifle; the appearance of Mr. Wayne Craighill as a driver of mules seemed not to have displeased Walsh. Wingfield read the advertisements in the panels over the windows and said nothing. Life, he resolved afresh, is an interesting business. In the hotel lavatory he made the acquaintance of that dark scroll of our democracy, the roller-towel. He was afraid not to use it, he told Walsh, for fear of being thought haughty; but he promised to report the matter to a Philadelphia friend of his who was a distinguished sanitarian. Joe, honouring the occasion with a white collar, was cooling his heels in the office when they came out from their supper, which had been suffered gloomily by Wingfield, whom the waitress had taken for the advance agent of a circus billed for early appearance in Denbeigh. This idea delighted him, and he confided to her that he had no tickets with him, but that she should not go unprovided for; he was only the monkey trainer, he confessed. There was a little park about the court-house, and thither Joe led them and discreetly disappeared. Wayne rose from a bench and greeted them. He had donned for the occasion the suit in which he had made the journey from home, and it hung loosely upon him. He was in good spirits and greeted them cordially, with much chaffing of Wingfield for his temerity in venturing so far from his beaten trails. In a few minutes Wingfield strolled away; it was Walsh, then, who had business with him, and Wayne settled himself to listen as the old fellow plunged characteristically to the heart of his errand. “The Colonel’s in bad shape. Things haven’t improved as he expected; some of the people who helped him out last fall won’t carry him any longer. And he’s sick, too. He’s a good deal broken, the Colonel is. I’ve been trying to help him--spending an hour a day at the office for a week or two.” “I like that! I suppose he sent for you.” “Don’t get hot, son; it makes no difference if he did. You want to cut out any feeling you have against your father--it ain’t like you--it never was like you. He’s your father; his blood’s in you, and he’s clear down now.”