lawyer can well be. He lived by himself; he had never married; and
the world, although he smiled at it facetiously, was not a pleasant
place in his eyes.

Henry, after he had washed himself at the sink in the shop, entered
the kitchen, where the table was set, and passed through to the
sitting-room, where the lawyer was. Sidney Meeks did not rise. He
extended one large, white hand affably. "How are you Henry?" said he,
giving the other man's lean, brown fingers a hard shake. "I dropped
in here on my way home from the post-office, and your wife tempted me
with flapjacks in a lordly dish, and I am about to eat."

"Glad to see you," returned Henry.

"You get home early, or it seems early, now the days are getting so
long," said Meeks, as Henry sat down opposite.

"Yes, it's early enough, but I don't get any more pay."

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.