The familiar smell of drugs, the sound of the trickling water in the soda fountain roused Hodder to reality, to action, and he hurried into the telephone booth, fumbled in the dog-eared book, got Dr. Jarvis’s number and called it.  An eternity seemed to elapse before he had a reply, heard his coin jangling in the bog, recognized the voice of the great doctor’s secretary.  Yes, the doctor was in would he speak to Mr. Hodder, of St. John’s? . . .  An interval, during which Hodder was suddenly struck with this designation of himself.  Was he still of St. John’s, then?  An aeon might have elapsed since he had walked down the white marble of its aisle toward the crouching figure in the pew.  He was not that man, but another—­and still Mr. Hodder, of St. John’s. . . .  Then he heard the specialist say, “Hello, Mr. Hodder, what can I do for you?” Heard his own voice in reply, explaining the case.  Could the doctor find time?  The doctor could:  he was never too busy to attend to the poor,—­though he did not say so:  he would be there—­by half-past six.  The rector hung up the receiver, opened the door of the booth and mopped his brow, for the heat was stifling.

“The doctor will go,” he explained in answer to Mr. Bentley’s inquiring look.

“Now, sir,” said the old gentleman, when they were out of the store, “we have done all that we can for the time being.  I do not live far from here.  Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of taking supper with me, if you have no other engagement.”

No other engagement!  Not until then did Hodder remember his empty rooms in the parish house, and the train which was to have borne him away from all this already speeding northward.  He accepted gratefully, nor did he pause to speculate upon the mystery by which the stream of his life seemed so suddenly to have been diverted.  He had, indeed, no sense of mystery in the presence of this splendidly sane, serene old man, any more than the children who ran after him from the dingy yards and passages, calling his name, clinging to the skirts of his coat.  These accepted him simply as an anomalous fact in their universe, grinned at his pleasantries, and held up grimy little hands for the kidney-shaped candy beans he drew forth from his capacious pockets.  In the intervals he reminisced to the rector about the neighbourhood.

“It seems but a short while ago when the trees met overhead—­magnificent trees they were.  The asphalt and the soot killed them.  And there were fruit trees in that yard”—­he pointed with his stick to a littered sun parched plot adjoining a battered mansion—­“all pink and white with blossoms in the spring.  Mr. Hadley lived there—­one of our forgotten citizens.  He is dead and gone now and his family scattered.  That other house, where the boy lies, belonged to Mr. Villars, a relation of the Atterbury family, and I can recall very well a little girl with a pink sash and a white dress who used to come running out to meet me with flowers in her hands.  Incredible as it may seem, she picked them in that yard.  I thought of her as I went in, how fresh and happy she used to be, and what a different place this was for children then.  She must have some of her own by this time.”