go out to prayer meeting or make parish calls. How do you like your work
so far?"

"There is plenty of it," answered Philip, gravely. "A minister must be
made of cast-iron and fire-brick in order to stand the wear and tear of
these times in which we live. I'd like a week to trade ideas with you
and talk over the work, Alfred."

"You'd get the worst of the bargain."

"I don't know about that. I'm not doing any thinking lately. But now, as
we're going to be only fifty miles apart, what's to hinder an exchange
once in a while?"

"I'm agreeable to that," replied Philip's chum; "on condition, however,
that you furnish me with a gun and pay all surgeons' bills when I occupy
your pulpit."

"Done," said Philip, with a grin; and just then Mrs. Strong forbade any
more talk. Alfred stayed until the evening train, and when he left he
stooped down and kissed Philip's cheek. "It's a custom we learned when
in the German universities together that summer after college, you
know," he explained with the slightest possible blush, when Mrs. Strong
came in and caught him in the act. It seemed to her, however, like an
affecting thing that two big, grown-up men like her husband and his old
chum showed such tender affection for each other. The love of men for
men in the strong friendship of school and college life is one of the
marks of human divinity.