He looked up eagerly.
"I remember now. It seems to have agreed with you."
"You're still with the leather firm?" I inquired.
He almost started at this unexpected question.
"Yes," he answered.
His eyes turned back to his trim little house, then to me as though he feared I was bringing him bad news.
"But I've been laid up for six weeks," he faltered.
I knew what was troubling him. He was wondering whether he would find his job when he got back. Poor devil! If he didn't what would become of his trim little house? Grover was older by five years than I had been when the axe fell.
I talked with him a few minutes. There had been a death or two in the neighborhood and the children had grown up. That was the only change. The sight of Grover made me uncomfortable, so I hurried about my business, eager to get home again.
God pity the poor? Bah! The poor are all right if by poor you mean the tenement dwellers. When you pray again pray God to pity the middle-class American on a salary. Pray that he may not lose his job; pray that if he does it shall be when he is very young; pray that he may find the route to America. The tenement dwellers are safe enough. Pray—and pray hard—for the dwellers in the trim little houses of the suburbs.