“Just think,” she exclaimed, “of drinking champagne over the building of schools for poor negroes! If you would send them the champagne how much more sensible it would be! There’s a beautiful idea. Why not found a society for providing free champagne for the poor and needy!” “It’s not for you to deride, Fanny. Only a little while ago you were raising a fund for the restoration of a Buddhist temple somewhere in darkest Japan--the merest fad. I remember that Doctor McAllister wrote me a letter expressing surprise that a daughter of mine should be aiding a heathen enterprise.” “It _was_ too bad, papa! But the temple is all restored now, and we had a little fund left over after the work was done--I was treasurer and didn’t know what else to do with it--so I gave it to help build an Episcopal parish house at Ironstead. And to-day I was out there in the machine and behold! Jimmy Paddock is running that parish house and a mission and is no end of a power in the place.” “Paddock? What Paddock?” asked Wayne. “Why, Jimmy Paddock. Don’t you remember him? You knew him in your prep. school, and he was on the eleven at Harvard while you were at the ‘Tech.’” “Not the same man,” declared Wayne. “I knew my Jimmy like a top; he was no monk--not by a long shot. Besides, his family had money to burn. No parish house larks for Jim. He knew how to order a dinner!” “It just happens,” replied Mrs. Blair, “that I knew Jimmy, too, back in your college days and I declare that I saw him this afternoon at Ironstead. I was out there looking for a maid who used to work for us and I met Jimmy Paddock in the street--a very disagreeable street it was, too. You know he was always shy and he seemed terribly embarrassed. It was hard work getting anything out of him; but he’s our old Jimmy and he’s a regular minister--went off and did it all by himself and has been out there at Ironstead for six months--all through the hot weather.” “Does he wear a becoming habit and hold quiet days for women?” asked Wayne. “I remember that you affected the Episcopalians for a while--for about half of one Lent! That was just before those table-tippers buncoed you into introducing them to our first families.” “That is unworthy of you, Wayne!” and Mrs. Blair frowned at her brother with mock indignation. “Nobody ever really explained some of the things those mediums did. They certainly told _me_ things----!” “I’ll wager they did,” laughed Wayne. “But go on about Jimmy.”