“I’m glad of it,” said Citizen Drew, with blunt heartiness.  “If you have set out to do anything among the plain folks you’ve got to be at work in the open, earning honest wages, or they’ll suspect you.  They have been fooled too often by fakes and loafers.  But since you advertised yourself in City Hall you may find jobs a little hard to land.  It’s pretty much of an air-tight proposition, Consolidated influence.”

“I have somebody looking after my interests in that line, Citizen Drew.  I’m not worrying.”  He opened the door.  “In fact, there are two mighty helpful chaps whom I’m going to associate with more or less from now on.”

“Bring ’em with you and let me know ’em.  Can’t have too many in a good cause.”

“I’ll bring them—­but they are pretty hard to understand—­rather slow getting acquainted—­lots of folks have no use for them,” said Farr, starting down-stairs.

“What are their names?” asked the inquisitive citizen, eager for more additions to his general stock of information.

“I’ll tell you later.”

But Farr named them to himself when he was on the street.

“Chance and Humility—­I hope you are going to stick by me from now on,” he muttered.  “Chance, you have led me into a queer position and into a strange state of mind.  Humility, you are helping me to understand.  Now, Chance, what have you to say to me?”

It was more of the fantastic whimsy with which Walker Farr played.

His eyes, searching the street after this challenge to Chance, beheld an ice-wagon rumbling past.  It was a neat-looking cart, painted white, and bore the advertisement, “Crystal Pure Independent Ice Company.”

Another wagon, painted dirty yellow, followed.  It was a Consolidated ice-cart; Farr knew those carts with their loads of river-ice.

The spectacle of something which promised rivalry to that yellow cart piqued his interest.  His mood welcomed the first adventure which Chance presented.  He had found Chance playing peculiar pranks with his affairs in the days just past.

He hurried in pursuit of the white cart and accosted the driver.

“Where can I find the manager of this company?”

“He’s up at Coosett Lake this afternoon, sir.”  The man was respectful.  The stranger’s garb and demeanor impressed him.  “The trolley will take you pretty near it.  Take a car in the square—­a Halcyon Park car.”

Without canvassing the matter further Farr took the car.

He decided that it was a most comforting sensation, this abandoning his problems to Chance!  It saved so much fuss and worry.

He found the little lake at the limits of the park area—­a hollow among the hills.

Men were busy at the foot of the slope over whose crest he marched.  He saw several rough buildings at the edge of the lake, plainly makeshift ice-houses.  One was a new structure and the other two were old barns which had been “darned” here and there with new material, and their yawed sides were propped with joists.  Men were loading ice upon carts; the translucent cubes flashed in the rays of the sun.