“And meantime?” enquired French.

“Meantime?  Oh!  I shall stick to my pills and plasters,—­we have ten patients in the hospital now,—­run the store and the mill, and try to help generally.  If this priest gets at his work and makes good, I promise you I’ll not bother him.”

“And if not?” enquired French.

“If not?  Well, then,” said Brown, sinking back into his easy, good-natured manner, “you see, I am constitutionally indolent.  I would rather he’d move out than I, and so while the colony stays here, it will be much easier for me to stay than to go.  And,” he added, “I shall get back my school, too.”

French looked at him admiringly.  Brown’s lips had come together in a straight line.

“By George!  I believe you,” exclaimed French, “and I think I see the finish of the Polish gentleman.  Can I help you out?”

“I do not know,” said Brown, “but Kalman can.  I want him to do some interpreting for me some of these days.  By the way, where is he to-day?  He is not with you.”

French’s face changed.  “That reminds me,” he said, “but I hate to unload my burden on you to-day when you have got your own.”

“Do not hesitate,” said Brown, with a return of his cheery manner; “another fellow’s burden helps to balance one’s own.  You know I am constitutionally selfish and get thinking far too much of myself, —­habit of mine, bad habit.”

“You go to thunder, Brown, with your various and many constitutional weaknesses.  When I look at you and your work for this thankless horde I feel something of a useless brute.”

“Hold up there, now, don’t you abuse my parishioners.  They are a perfectly good lot if left alone.  They are awfully grateful, and, yes, in many ways they are a good lot.”

“Yes, a jolly lot of quitters they are.  They have quit you dead.”

Brown winced.  “Let us up on that spot, French,” he said.  “It is a little raw yet.  What’s your trouble?”

“Well,” said French, “I hardly know how to begin.  It is Kalman.”  At once Brown was alert.

“Sick?”

“Oh! no, not he.  Fit as a fiddle; but the fact is he is not doing just as well as he ought.”

“How do you mean?” said Brown anxiously.

“Well, he is growing up into a big chap, you know, getting towards sixteen, and pretty much of a man in many ways, and while he is a fine, clean, straight boy and all that, he is not just what I would like.”

“None of us are,” said Brown quietly.

“True, as far as I am concerned,” replied French.  “I do not know about you.  But to go on.  The boy has got a fiendish temper and, on slight provocation, he is into a fight like a demon.”

“With you?” said Brown.

“Oh, come,” said French, “you know better than that.  No, he gets with those Galicians, and then there is a row.  The other week, now—­well—­” French was finding it difficult to get on.