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“Did he say anything?”

“No, he didn’t say much of anything, but he said it in a way that made my flesh fairly creep. Says he, ‘As long as this is my house and my furniture and my cats, Mis’ Adkins, I think I’ll sit down in the parlor, where I can see to read my paper and smoke at the same time.’ Then he holds the kitchen door open, and he calls, ‘Kitty, kitty, kitty!’ and that great tiger tommy comes in with his tail up, rubbing round his legs, and all the other cats followed after. I shut the door before these last ones got into the parlor.” Susan Adkins regarded malevolently the three tortoise-shell cats of three generations and various stages of growth, one Maltese settled in a purring round of comfort with four kittens, and one perfectly black cat, which sat glaring at her with beryl-colored eyes.

“That black cat looks evil,” said Mrs. Trimmer.

“Yes, he does. I don’t know why I didn’t drown him when he was a kitten.”

“Why didn’t you drown all those Malty kittens?”

“The old cat hid them away until they were too big. Then he wouldn’t let me. What do you suppose has come to him? Just smell that awful pipe!”

“Men do take queer streaks every now and then,” said Mrs. Trimmer. “My husband used to, and he was as good as they make ’em, poor man. He would eat sugar on his beefsteak, for one thing. The first time I saw him do it I was scared. I thought he was plum crazy, but afterward I found out it was just because he was a man, and his ma hadn’t wanted him to eat sugar when he was a boy. Mr. Bennet will get over it.”

“He don’t act as if he would.”

“Oh yes, he will. Jim Bennet never stuck to anything but being Jim Bennet for very long in his life, and this ain’t being Jim Bennet.”

“He is a very good man,” said Susan with a somewhat apologetic tone.

“He’s too good.”

“He’s too good to cats.”

“Seems to me he’s too good to ‘most everybody. Think what he has done for Amanda and Alma, and how they act!”

“Yes, they are ungrateful and real mean to him; and I feel sometimes as if I would like to tell them just what I think of them,” said Susan Adkins. “Poor man, there he is, studying all the time what he can do for people, and he don’t get very much himself.”

Mrs. Trimmer arose to take leave. She had a long, sallow face, capable of a sarcastic smile. “Then,” said she, “if I were you I wouldn’t begrudge him a chair in the parlor and a chance to read and smoke and hold a pussy-cat.”

“Who said I was begrudging it? I can air out the parlor when he’s got over the notion.”

“Well, he will, so you needn’t worry,” said Mrs. Trimmer. As she went down the street she could see Jim’s profile beside the parlor window, and she smiled her sarcastic smile, which was not altogether unpleasant. “He’s stopped smoking, and he ain’t reading,” she told herself. “It won’t be very long before he’s Jim Bennet again.”

But it was longer than she anticipated, for Jim’s will was propped by Edward Hayward’s. Edward kept Jim to his standpoint for weeks, until a few days before Christmas. Then came self-assertion, that self-assertion of negation which was all that Jim possessed in such a crisis. He called upon Dr. Hayward; the two were together in the little study for nearly an hour, and talk ran high, then Jim prevailed.

“It’s no use, Edward,” he said; “a man can’t be made over when he’s cut and dried in one fashion, the way I am. Maybe I’m doing wrong, but to me it looks like doing right, and there’s something in the Bible about every man having his own right and wrong. If what you say is true, and I am hindering the Lord Almighty in His work, then it is for Him to stop me. He can do it. But meantime I’ve got to go on doing the way I always have. Joe has been trying to drive that tip-cart, and the horse ran away with him twice. Then he let the cart fall on his foot and mash one of his toes, and he can hardly get round, and Amanda and Alma don’t dare touch that money in the bank for fear of not having enough to pay the taxes next year in case I don’t help them. They only had a little money on hand when I gave them that talking to, and Christmas is ‘most here, and they haven’t got things they really need. Amanda’s coat that she wore to meeting last Sunday didn’t look very warm to me, and poor Alma had her furs chewed up by the Leach dog, and she’s going without any. They need lots of things. And poor Mis’ Adkins is ‘most sick with tobacco smoke. I can see it, though she doesn’t say anything, and the nice parlor curtains are full of it, and cat hairs are all over things. I can’t hold out any longer, Edward. Maybe I am a door-mat; and if I am, and it is wicked, may the Lord forgive me, for I’ve got to keep right on being a door-mat.”