"Then I should be willing to back my way against his. Don't you see? That's the point. That's the secret I'm telling you about. Right works; wrong doesn't."

"That's all very fine—"

"It's all very fine because it's so. Right is—what's the word William James put into the dictionary?"

He suggested pragmatism.

"That's it. Right is pragmatic, which I suppose is the same thing as practical. Wrong must be impractical; it must be—"

"I shouldn't bank too confidently on that in dealing with the great J. Howard."

"But I'm going to bank on it. It's where I'm to have him at a disadvantage. If he does wrong while I do right, why, then I'll get him on the hip."

"How do you know he's going to do wrong?"

"I don't. I merely surmise it. If he does right—"

"He'll get you on the hip."

"No, because there can't be a right for him which isn't a right for me. There can't be two rights, each contrary to the other. That's not in common sense. If he does right then I shall be safe—whichever way I have to take it. Don't you see? That's where the success comes in as well as the secret. It can't be any other way. Please don't think I'm talking in what H. G. Wells calls the tin-pot style—but one must express oneself somehow. I'm not afraid, because I feel as if I'd got something that would hang about me like a magic cloak. Of course for you—a man—a magic cloak may not be necessary; but I assure you that for a girl like me, out in the world on her own—"

He, too, sobered down from his chaffing mood.

"But in this case what is going to be Right—written with a capital?"

I had just time to reply, "Oh, that I shall have to see!" when the children and dogs came scampering up and our conversation was over.

On returning from my walk with Gladys I informed Mrs. Rossiter of the order I had received. I could see her distressed look in the mirror before which she sat doing something to her hair.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "it's just what I was afraid of. Now I suppose 

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