When he had been informed by the judge of the latest chapter in the history of the canteen outrage, Mr. Allison laughed heartily.
"What have you been voting for the last ten years, Judge," he asked.
"Not for the canteen," the older man answered warmly.
"I have, and for every other measure conducive to the best interests of the trade—and we have voted the same ticket to a dot."
Finding the judge rather indisposed to talk just then the young man turned to his hostess.
"I am on a quest," he said. "Tell me of some one possessed of enough knowledge of human nature to recommend a course that will square me with an unruly conscience and—a woman."
"My father is a legal light, ask him. He needs diversion now, I think," and Jean smiled at sight of his perplexed face.
"His specialty has not been 'man atoms of a great iniquity,'" said Allison with a smile that hardly concealed his anxiety. "Tell me, what would you do if you had been a 'man-atom,' had grown disgusted with the mother mass and wished to completely sever your connection with it before God and man?"
"You mean if I were a man? Well, first I would ask the Lord to forgive me for ever having been a 'man-atom.'"
"I have been duly penitent," assented the questioner.