Meeks laughed. "Henry, you are the direct outcome of your day and generation," said he. "Less time, and more pay for less time, is our slogan." "Well, why not?" returned Henry, surlily, still with a dawn of delighted opposition in his thin, intelligent face. "Why not? Look at the money that's spent all around us on other things that correspond. What's an automobile but less time and more money, eh?" Meeks laughed. "Give it up until after supper, Henry," he said, as Sylvia's thin, sweet voice was heard from the next room. "If you men don't stop talking and come right out, these flapjacks will be spoiled!" she cried. The men arose and obeyed her call. "There are compensations for everything," said Meeks, laughing, as he settled down heavily into his chair. He was a large man. "Flapjacks are compensations. Let us eat our compensations and be thankful. That's my way of saying grace. You ought always to say grace, Henry, when you have such a good cook as your wife is to get meals for you. If you had to shift for yourself, the way I do, you'd feel that it was a simple act of decency." "I don't see much to say grace for," said Henry, with a disagreeable sneer. "Oh, Henry!" said Sylvia. "For compensations in the form of flapjacks, with plenty of butter and sugar and nutmeg," said Meeks. "These are fine, Mrs. Whitman." "A good thick beefsteak at twenty-eight cents a pound, regulated by the beef trust, would be more to my liking after a hard day's work," said Henry. Sylvia exclaimed again, but she was not in reality disturbed. She was quite well aware that her husband was enjoying himself after his own peculiar fashion, and that, if he spoke the truth, the flapjacks were more to his New England taste for supper than thick beefsteak. "Well, wait until after supper, and maybe you will change your mind about having something to say grace for," Meeks said, mysteriously. The husband and wife stared at him. "What do you mean, Mr. Meeks?" asked Sylvia, a little nervously. Something in the lawyer's manner agitated her. She was not accustomed to mysteries. Life had not held many for her, especially of late years. Henry took another mouthful of flapjacks. "Well, if you can give me any good reason for saying grace you will do more than the parson ever has," he said. "Oh, Henry!" said Sylvia. "It's the truth," said Henry. "I've gone to meeting and heard how thankful I ought to be for things I haven't got, and things I have got that other folks haven't, and for forgiveness for breaking commandments, when, so far as I can tell, commandments are about the only things I've been able to keep without taxes--till I'm tired of it."