If there was a bit of sarcasm in Farr’s tone the Quaker paid no apparent heed.

“No,” he said, quietly and meekly, “this is a brace for the leg of a little lame boy.  I have found many children in this city who cannot walk.  Their parents are too poor to buy braces.  So I come here nights, when the good man is away from the forge, and I make braces and carry them with my blessing.  I have some knack with the hammer.  I hope to find other ways of doing my bit of good.”

“I beg your pardon, Friend Chick,” said Farr, a catch in his voice.  “I will not bother you in your work.  Good night!”

“Good night to thee!” said the Quaker, swinging at the bellows arm.

Farr went back upon the street, his head bowed.  “We all have our own way of doing it,” he pondered, contritely.

He met a man and greeted him with a friendly handclasp.  It was Citizen Drew, that elderly man with the earnest face.

And as he had in the past, he turned, caught step with Farr, and they walked together.

Their stroll took them into the broader avenues of up-town.

As they talked, Farr caught side glances from his companion.  The glances were a bit inquisitive.

“Well, Citizen Drew,” asked the young man, “what is on your mind this evening?”

“Since I have known you and studied you I have been thinking that you have the spirit of knight-errantry in you,” stated Citizen Drew.

Farr laughed boyishly.

“Two very nice old ladies have just got ahead of you with that accusation, my friend.”

“Laugh if you feel like it.  But there are so few men who can do anything unselfishly in these days that when a chap like you does come along he gets noticed—­at any rate, I notice him.”  He stopped dealing in side glances and stared at Farr fully and frankly.  “Other men who would do the things you are doing so quietly in this state have been playing politics—­and I have made it my business to watch politicians.  And as soon as men have been elected to office by fooling the people—­well, those men have simply been set into the Big Machine as new cogs.  Are you like the rest, Mr. Farr?  Nobody knows where you came from.  Everybody who sees you knows you’re above the jobs you have been working at.  They’re talking you up for alderman in our ward.  But we have been fooled so many times!”

Farr replied to this wistful inquisition in a way there was no misunderstanding.

“I am not a candidate for anything, Citizen Drew.  And I’ll tell you how I can prove I am not.  I am not a voter here.  I have intentionally failed to have myself registered.  Whenever you hear another man talking me up for office you tell him that.  Therefore, it makes no difference to anybody where I came from or what job I work at.”

Citizen Drew accepted the rebuke humbly and walked on in silence.

“You have always been fooled, you say, when you have elected men to office.  Haven’t you any men in this state whom you can elect to high office, knowing for sure that they’ll stay straight?”