“You don’t smoke, Mr. Hodder.  I always forget.  That’s the way you manage to keep yourself in such good shape.”  He drew out a gold match box and seated himself with an air of gusto opposite his guest.  “And you haven’t had a vacation, they tell me.”

“On the contrary,” said the rector, “McCrae has taken the services all summer.”

“But you’ve been in the city!” Mr. Plimpton exclaimed, puffing at his cigar.

“Yes, I’ve been in the city.”

“Well, well, I’ll bet you haven’t been idle.  Just between us, as friends, Mr. Hodder, I’ve often wondered if you didn’t work too hard —­there’s such a thing as being too conscientious, you know.  And I’ve an idea that the rest of the vestry think so.  Mr. Parr, for instance.  We know when we’ve got a good thing, and we don’t want to wear you out.  Oh, we can appreciate your point of view, and admire it.  But a little relaxation—­eh?  It’s too bad that you couldn’t have seen your way to take that cruise—­Mr. Parr was all cut up about it.  I guess you’re the only man among all of us fairly close to him, who really knows him well,” said Mr. Plimpton, admiringly.  “He thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Hodder.  By the way, have you seen him since he got back?”

“No,” Hodder answered.

“The trip did him good.  I thought he was a little seedy in the spring —­didn’t you?  Wonderful man!  And when I think how he’s slandered and abused it makes me hot.  And he never says anything, never complains, lives up there all alone, and takes his medicine.  That’s real patriotism, according to my view.  He could retire to-morrow —­but he keeps on—­why?  Because he feels the weight of a tremendous responsibility on his shoulders, because he knows if it weren’t for him and men like him upon whom the prosperity of this nation depends, we’d have famine and anarchy on our hands in no time.  And look what he’s done for the city, without ostentation, mind you!  He never blows his own horn-never makes a speech.  And for the Church!  But I needn’t tell you.  When this settlement house and chapel are finished, they’ll be coming out here from New York to get points.  By the way, I meant to have written you.  Have our revised plans come yet?  We ought to break ground in November, oughtn’t we?”

“I intend to lay my views on that matter before the vestry at the next meeting, the rector said.

“Well,” declared Mr. Plimpton, after a scarcely perceptible pause, “I’ve no doubt they’ll be worth listening to.  If I were to make a guess,” he continued, with a contemplative smile, blowing a thin stream of smoke towards the distant ceiling, “I should bet that you have spent your summer looking over the ground.  I don’t say that you have missed your vocation, Mr. Hodder, but I don’t mind telling you that for a clergyman, for a man absorbed in spiritual matters, a man who can preach the sermons you preach, you’ve got more common-sense and business thoroughness than any one I have ever run across in your profession.”