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"I'm not a competent witness," I answered "I'll be

frank with you: I don't like hi your pardon I didn't know, of course"

"The subject is not painful to h he was always rather thrust before me as

an ideal back in ods of success have opened all the

gates for him"

"Yes,-and yet-"

"And yet-" I repeated Stoddard lifted a glass of

sherry to the light and studied it for a moment He did

not drink wine, but was not, I found, afraid to look

at it

"And yet," he said, putting down the glass and speaking

slowly, "when the gates of good fortune open too

readily and smoothly, they may close sometimes rather

too quickly and snap ato afflict you with shavings of wisdom

from the shop-floor, but life wasn't intended to be too

easy The spirit of

It doesn't flourish under too ood luck I'ood luck"

"I've never tried it," I said laughingly

"I a for it," and he spoke soberly

I could not talk of Pickering with Bates-the ed the subject

"I suppose you iatha's,-an agreeable exercise of

the priestly office, I should say!"