"What was your friend's idea in writing such outrageous stuff, do you know? Is he really crazy, as they say, or is he just an ordinary notoriety seeker?" Colorless Hen looked rather hard at her pretty cousin. She allowed a perceptible pause to fall before she said: "I thought you said you knew him." "No; I said that I barely spoke to him once." "If you only said good-morning to him--if you only _looked_ at him once, on the street--I don't see how you could possibly imagine.... Why, Cally, he's about the least self-seeking human being that ever lived. He's so absolutely un-self-seeking that he gives away every single thing he's got, to anybody that comes along and wants it. In the first place, he's giving away his life.... Some of his ideas may be visionary or mistaken, but--" "I should think so, after glancing at his article. What _was_ his object, then, my dear?" "Well, that's simple, I should think. He went to the Works, and thought that conditions there were bad, and being what would be called the reformer type, I suppose he thought it his duty to tell people so, so that the conditions would be corrected--" "Well, really, Hen! Don't you know, if conditions _were_ bad at the Works,--whatever that may mean, and I for one have never felt that working-girls were entitled to Turkish baths and manicures,--don't you _know_ papa would correct what was wrong without being called a homicide by--by eccentric medical men?" Hen hesitated, and then began: "Well, business is hard, Cally, and men in business--" "Why doesn't your friend try attending to his own, then, the medical business, instead of interfering all the time with other people's?" The Cooney answered quite easily: "You see, he'd say this _was_ his business." Then she smiled a little, thoughtfully, and said: "He'd say, Cally, that the world's all one family, and everybody's responsible for everybody else. The cute part about it is that he absolutely believes it.... And it worries him that people aren't as happy as they ought to be, the poor because they haven't anything to be happy with, the rich because they have too much. He and Mr. Beirne argue about that for hours. He's absolutely the only person I ever saw who really doesn't care for--" "Why, my _dear_!" interrupted Carlisle, smiling rather dangerously. "You'll make me believe that you _admire_ the man immensely." Hen laughed, and replied enigmatically: "Well, it's nice to feel free to admire what's admirable, don't you think so?" "You do admire him very much?" "I think he's perfectly precious," said Henrietta Cooney. A peal of triumph from the rear room indicated that Major Cooney had reached the king-row in the teeth of bitter opposition. The peal came from Looloo, who should have been reading "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" with a big dictionary instead of hanging over her father's shoulder. Footsteps above suggested that Chas and Aunt Molly were making a careful toilet indeed for his call upon the obscure inamorata.