corruption of his pupil in a single lesson; and so he continued:

"Got to live, my son! Self-p-p-preservation is the first law, and so we must imitate the rest of the b-b-brute creation, and live off of each other! The big ones must feed upon the little and the strong upon the weak. 'Every man for himself and the d-d-devil take the hindmost!' That's my religion."

"You may be right," said David, "but I cannot say that I take to it kindly. I do not see how a man can practice this cruelty and injustice without suffering."

"Suffering! Idea of suffering is greatly exaggerated. Ever watch a t-t-toad that was being swallowed by a snake? Looks as if he positively enjoyed it. It's his mission. Born to be eaten! If there was as much pain in the world as p-p-people say, do you think anybody could endure it! Isn't the d-d-door always open? Can't a man quit when he wants to? Suffering! Pshaw! Do I look as if I suffered? Does Pepeeta look as if she suffered? And yet she b-b-bamboozles them worse than I do."

The head of the gypsy bent lower and lower over her crocheting.

"She plays upon them like a fife! They d-d-dance when she whistles! Next to wanting a universal panacea for pain, the idiots want a knowledge of the future! Everybody but me wants to know what kind of a to-morrow God Almighty has made

for him. I make my own to-morrows! I don't ask to have my destiny made up for me like a t-t-tailor coat. I make my own destiny. If things d-d-don't come my way, I just pull them! People talk about 'following Providence!' I follow Providence as an Irishman follows his wheel-barrow. I shove it! See? But that is not the way of the rest of them, thank Fortune! And so Pepeeta gathers them in! Strange fish g-g-get into her net, Davy. Back there in your own little t-t-town she caught some of your long-faced old Quakers, b-b-big fellows with broad-brimmed hats, drab coats and ox eyes, regular meetin'-goers! And there was that little d-d-dove-eyed girl. What was it she wanted to know, P-P-Pepeeta? Tell him. Ha! ha! Tell him and we will see him b-b-blush."

"She asked me if her father was going to send her to Philadelphia this winter," she answered, without lifting her eyes.

"I don't mean that!"

"She asked me whether I could tell them where to find the spotted heifer."

"The d-d-deuce, child! Why don't you tell me what she asked you 'bout D-D-Davy?"

"It is time for us to go to supper or we shall be late," she replied, laying aside her work and rising.

"Sure enough!" cried the doctor, springing to his feet. "The Q-Q-Quaker has knocked everything out of my head. Come on!"

He rose and began bustling about the room. When Pepeeta glanced up from her work she

saw in David's eye a grateful appreciation of her courtesy and tact, and his look filled her with a new happiness.

The disgust awakened in the Quaker's mind by the coarseness of the quack was more than offset by the beauty and grace of the gypsy. When he looked at her, when he was even conscious of her presence, he felt a happiness which compensated for all that he had suffered or lost. He did not stop to ask what its nature was. He had cast discretion to the winds. He had in these few hours since his departure broken so utterly with the past that he was like a man who had been suddenly awakened from a long lapse of memory. His old life was as if it had never been. He felt himself to be in a vacuum, where all his ideas must be newly created. This epoch of his experience was superimposed upon the other like a different geological formation. Like the old monks in their cells, he was deliberately trying to erase from the parchment of his soul all that had been previously written, in order that he might begin a new life history.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MOTH AND THE FLAME

"Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray
By passion driven:

But yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven.

-Burns.

A little before dusk the three companions started upon their evening's business. The horses and carriage were waiting at the door and they mounted to their seats. David was embarrassed by the novelty of the situation, and Pepeeta by his presence; but the quack was in his highest spirits. He saluted the bystanders with easy familiarity, ostentatiously flung the hostler a coin, flourished his whip and excited universal admiration for his driving.

During the turn which they took around the city for an advertisement, he indoctrinated his pupil with the principles of his art.

"People to-day are just what they were centuries ago. G-g-gull 'em just as easy. Make 'em think the moon is made of g-g-green cheese-way to catch larks is to p-p-pull the heavens down-extract sunbeams from c-c-cucumbers and all the rest! There's one master-weakness, Davy. They all think they are sick, or if they d-d-don't, you can make 'em!"

"What! Make a well man think he is sick?" the Quaker asked in astonishment.

"Sure! That's the secret of success. I can pick out the strongest man in the c-c-crowd and in five minutes have pains shooting through him like g-g-greased lightning. They are all like jumpingjacks to the man that knows them. You watch me pull the string and you-you'll see them wig-wigwiggle."

"It seems a pity to take advantage of such weakness in our fellow men," said David, whose heart began to suffer qualms as he contemplated this rascality and his own connection with it.

"Fellow men! They are no fellows of mine. They are nuts for me to c-c-crack. They are oysters for quack, as he drove

me to open!" responded the gaily into the public square and checked the horses, who stood with their proud necks arched, champing their bits and looking around at the crowd as if they shared their master's contempt.

Pepeeta descended from the carriage and made her way hastily into the tent which had already been pitched for her. The doctor lighted his torch and set his stock of goods in order while David, obeying his directions, began to move among the people to study their habits. Elbowing his way here and there, he contemplated the crowd in the light of the quack's philosophy, and as he did so received a series of painful mental shocks.

"The first principle in the art of painting a picture is to know where to sit down;" in other words, everything depends upon the point of view. Now that David began to look for evidences of the weak