"Life's just what that card a fellow tacked up in the office one day says it is:—'one damned thing after another,'" he asserted grimly. "There's no use trying to see any good in it all."
Brown looked up quickly. Into his eyes leaped a sudden look of understanding, and of more than understanding—anger with something, or some one. But his voice was quiet.
"So somebody's put that card up in your office, too. I wonder how many of them there are tacked up in offices all over the country."
"A good many, I guess."
"I suppose every time you look up at it, it convinces you all over again," remarked Brown. He picked up the poker, and leaning forward began to stir the fire.
"I don't need convincing. I know it—I've experienced it. God!—I've had reason to."
"If you don't believe in Him"—Brown was poking vigorously now—"why bring Him into the conversation?"
Jennings laughed—a short, ugly laugh. "That sounds like you, always putting a fellow in a corner. I use the word, I suppose, to—"
"To give force to what you say? It does it, in a way. But it's not the way you use it when you address Him, is it?"
"I don't address Him." Jennings's tone was defiant.