"You go to thunder, Brown, with your various and many constitutional weaknesses. When I look at you and your work for this thankless horde I feel something of a useless brute."
"Hold up there, now, don't you abuse my parishioners. They are a perfectly good lot if left alone. They are awfully grateful, and, yes, in many ways they are a good lot."
"Yes, a jolly lot of quitters they are. They have quit you dead."
Brown winced. "Let us up on that spot, French," he said. "It is a little raw yet. What's your trouble?"
"Well," said French, "I hardly know how to begin. It is Kalman." At once Brown was alert.
"Sick?"
"Oh! no, not he. Fit as a fiddle; but the fact is he is not doing just as well as he ought."
"How do you mean?" said Brown anxiously.
"Well, he is growing up into a big chap, you know, getting towards sixteen, and pretty much of a man in many ways, and while he is a fine, clean, straight boy and all that, he is not just what I would like."
"None of us are," said Brown quietly.