Several men followed on the heels of one another. When they were all gone, Christy’s mind had largely recovered its ordinary temper. “Jim Perry is an awfully decent chap; it was upsetting to see him looking so done. If he had stayed in this country, three-quarters of a lifetime of work would probably be before him. One can’t help remembering it. But—I can accept the logic of missions.” He took the little cardboard box from the drawer into which he had thrust it and read every Scripture verse on all its sides. “Yes, the arguments are strong. I don’t pretend to gainsay foreign missions. But yet it can’t be denied that thousands of the holiest of saints have lived their lives out within the limits of Christendom and found more than their hands could do with their might. However, that sort of incompatibility between the two sides of a truth is the commonest thing in the world. It does not shake the claim of the missionaries.” “I wonder,” he meditated, “how much genuine missionary spirit there is in the church of to-day. I don’t mean among the specialists, the experts, like Jim (and me)”—Christy had the grace to laugh a little—“but in the rank and file.” He lifted the contribution box and regarded it with a new expression. By-and-bye he smiled broadly. “It will be an interesting experiment,” said Christy. “Let us try it.” He put the box up again on the mantelpiece, where Jim had first set it, clearing a space about it that it might stand unshadowed in a small rim of black marble. Another hour of the afternoon passed as many other hours had done. Christy had returned to his habit of absorption in what was in hand. An old woman, rich and “crotchety,” had been talking business with him for the last fifteen minutes. “The old dame is as keen as a weasel,” thought Christy, as he listened with bowed head, deferentially. “Not many men could fool her on a deal. She is honest herself, and she doesn’t mean to be cheated. The most of her time is given to padlocking and double-barring her money chest.” Finally she came to a pause. She pointed across the room. “You have something new there. What is it?” “A collection box,” answered Christy, accepting his cue, promptly. “A college classmate of mine, a missionary to China, left it. The missionaries are calling for a special offering at Christmas.” The old lady heard him out patiently. When he had finished, she began to speak of further precautions and provisos that had occurred to her as to her affairs. Then she arose stiffly to go. At the mantelpiece she stopped, took a bill from her full purse and slipped it into the narrow opening of the missionary box. She had given the first contribution to Jim’s heathen. “Of her abundance,” quoth Christy, as he shut the door behind her. Miss Craig, his stenographer, was moving at the other end of the office. She shut up her typewriter; it was the hour for her to leave.