"'It is Commencement day at a certain large college in a certain city which we need not name. The graduating class have met together for the last time in their own particular class-room. The saintly, white-haired priest who has watched their progress step by step from the day they first entered college stands before them. He speaks words to them which brings tears to those young eyes, accustomed, as a rule, to looking only on the merry side of life. He speaks words of true affection, of gentle admonition and fatherly advice. He gives to each youth a tiny silver medal of our Blessed Mother, and exacts from each one a promise that he will faithfully carry that little medal until the day of his death.'
"As Jim spoke he took from an inner pocket a small medal of our Lady and laid it on the palm of his hand. I drew forth my rosary, and there, beside the crucifix, hung a medal the counterpart of Jim's. He smiled as he continued:
"'I see you remember now, Father, but listen just a little longer for my story is not finished. From that class-room those lads went forth into the busy world of men and of affairs. They went their separate ways, each one to fill that position in life to which he felt himself called, most of them fired by ambition and confident of success.
"'One of those young men left the college that night with his heart as buoyant and hopeful as any of his companions. Almost from the first, however, things seemed to go wrong with him. He was an orphan, father and mother having died a few years before. Perhaps if either parent had been at hand to warn him of the dangers into which he was drifting, his life might have been different. Perhaps, even if some one had warned him, the warning would have passed unheeded. He tried law for a time and did not like it; tried business and gave that up; drifted from one thing to another, always drifting lower, lower, until at last he found himself an outcast and a wanderer. For some years he lived the life of a vagrant. If at times a longing to return to better ways, a longing for all that might have been, stirred faintly within him, the feeling was quickly drowned by recourse to the one thing to which he remained faithful, the enemy that had brought about his ruin, drink.
"'During his wanderings he picked up odd jobs here and there, and one day he is taken on by the boss of the stone-crusher over there in those quarries of yours. They were badly in need of some one to stoke the engine, and even a rough looking tramp was welcome. That same day there comes to the place a certain priest who is searching for one of the stray sheep from his own fold. The tramp recognizes the priest at once, and the sight of that familiar face brings back the old, happy days of his innocent boyhood. The priest commences to speak; he pleads, he reasons with the boss of the stone-crusher. In spirit the tramp is once more back in the college chapel listening to the saintly old man who had been his guide and confidant in youth, and who had long since passed to his reward. The vague, discontented longing for better things rises up in full strength. After all, why not? The look on the priest's face as he turns away decides him. That look of bitter disappointment, of real grief, on the face of his old college friend is more than the tramp can stand. He speaks, the priest turns to him, and—well, the rest of the story you know for yourself, Father. That is, the rest as far as any mortal can relate it. The end is not yet, but I trust that end will be one which will satisfy even you.'"
Silence reigned for several moments, the fragrant silence of a warm May night. And then:
"I am sure it will, I am sure it will," mused Father Anthony, smiling confidently. "I have no fear as to what the end will be for Jim, my one-armed tramp."
"But the other man, Father, the boss of the stone-crusher? What has become of him?"
"Oh! that little game of hide and seek is still going on, but I have not lost hope even yet. God's mills grind slowly and we must abide His own good time, His own good time."