“I thought you fellows were to build him a settlement house there,” Langmaid observed.

“On the condition that he wouldn’t turn socialist.”

“You’d better have stipulated it in the bond,” said the lawyer, who could not refrain, even at this solemn moment, from the temptation of playing upon Mr. Plimpton’s apprehensions.  “I’m afraid he’ll make it his business, Wallis, to find out whether you own anything in Dalton Street.  I’ll bet he’s got a list of Dalton Street property in his pocket right now.”

Mr. Plimpton groaned.

“Thank God I don’t own any of it!” said Langmaid.

“What the deuce does he intend to do?” the other demanded.

“Read it out in church,” Langmaid suggested.  “It wouldn’t sound pretty, Wallis, to be advertised in the post on Monday morning as owning that kind of a hotel.”

“Oh, he’s a gentleman,” said Mr. Plimpton, “he wouldn’t do anything as low as that!”

“But if he’s become a socialist?” objected Langmaid.

“He wouldn’t do it,” his friend reiterated, none too confidently.  “I shouldn’t be surprised if he made me resign from the vestry and forced me to sell my interest.  It nets me five thousand a year.”

“What is the place?” Langmaid asked sympathetically, “Harrod’s?”

Mr. Plimpton nodded.

“Not that I am a patron,” the lawyer explained somewhat hastily.  “But I’ve seen the building, going home.”

“It looks to me as if it would burn down some day, Wallis.”

“I wish it would,” said Mr. Plimpton.

“If it’s any comfort to you—­to us,” Langmaid went on, after a moment, “Eldon Parr owns the whole block above Thirteenth, on the south side —­bought it three years ago.  He thinks the business section will grow that way.”

“I know,” said Mr. Plimpton, and they looked at each other.

The name predominant in both minds had been mentioned.

“I wonder if Hodder really knows what he’s up against.”  Mr. Plimpton sometimes took refuge in slang.

“Well, after all, we’re not sure yet that he’s ‘up against anything,’” replied Langmaid, who thought the time had come for comfort.  “It may all be a false alarm.  There’s no reason, after all, why a Christian clergyman shouldn’t rescue women in Dalton Street, and remain in the city to study the conditions of the neighbourhood where his settlement house is to be.  And just, because you or I would not be able to resist an invitation to go yachting with Eldon Parr, a man might be imagined who had that amount of moral courage.”

“That’s just it.  Hodder seems to me, now I come to think of it, just the kind of John Brown type who wouldn’t hesitate to get into a row with Eldon Parr if he thought it was right, and pull down any amount of disagreeable stuff about our ears.”

“You’re mixing your heroes, Wallis,” said Langmaid.

“I can’t help it.  You’d catch it, too, Nelson.  What in the name of sense possessed you to get such a man?”