Raridan had little to say as he and Wheaton walked homeward together, though Wheaton felt in duty bound to express his pleasure in the music and, a little less heartily, in the sermon. Raridan's mind was on something else, and Wheaton turned inward to his own thoughts. He was complacent in his own virtue; he had made the most of the talents God had given him, and in his Sunday evening lectures Doctor Morningstar had laid great stress on this; it was the doctor's idea of the preaching office to make life appear easy, and he filled his church twice every Sunday with people who were glad to see it that way. As Wheaton walked beside Raridan he thought of the venerable figure that had leaned out over the congregation of St. Paul's that morning, and appealed in his own mind from Bishop Delafield to Doctor Morningstar, and felt that the bishop was overruled. As he understood Doctor Morningstar's preaching it dealt chiefly with what the doctor called ideality, and this, as near as Wheaton could make out, was derived from Ruskin, Emerson and Carlyle, who were the doctor's favorite authors. The impression which remained with him of the morning at St. Paul's was not of the rugged old bishop's sermon, which he had already dismissed, but of the novel exercises in the chancel, the faint breath of perfumes that were to him the true odor of sanctity, and what he would have called, if he had defined it, the high-toned atmosphere of the place. The bishop was only an occasional visitor in the cathedral; he was old-fashioned and a crank; but no doubt the regular minister of the congregation preached a cheerfuller idea of life than his bishop, and more of that amiable conduct which is, as Doctor Morningstar was forever quoting from a man named Arnold, three-fourths of life. When Wheaton reached his room he found an envelope lying on his table, much soiled, and addressed, in an unformed hand, to himself. It contained a dirty scrap of paper bearing these words: "Jim: I'll be at the Occidental Hotel tonight at 8 o'clock. Don't fail to come. BILLY." CHAPTER XIII BARGAIN AND SALE That is a disastrous moment in the history of any man in which he concludes that the problems of life are easy of solution. Life has been likened by teachers of ethics to a great school, but the comparison is not wholly apt. As an educational system, life is decidedly not up to date; the curriculum lacks flexibility, and the list of easy electives and "snap" courses is discouragingly brief. A reputable poet holds that "life is a game the soul can play"; but the game, it should be remembered, is not always so easy as it looks. It could hardly be said that James Wheaton made the most of all his opportunities, or that he had mastered circumstances, although his biography as printed in the daily press on the occasion of his succession to the mock throne of the Knights of Midas gave this impression with a fine color of truth, and with no purpose to deceive.