He pointed to one of the bulging gunny sacks.

“That’s the antidote,” he said.  “It’s the best medicine I know of in the grub line for a man who’s lost his grip.  There’s the making of three men in that sack.”

“What is it?” asked David, curiously.

The Missioner bent over to examine a card attached to the neck of the bag.

“To be perfectly accurate it contains 110 pounds of beans,” he answered.

“Beans!  Great Heavens!  I loathe them!”

“So do most down-and-outs,” affirmed Father Roland, cheerfully.  “That’s one reason for the peculiar psychological value of beans.  They begin to tell you when you’re getting weaned away from a lobster palate and a stuffed-crab stomach, and when you get to the point where you want ’em on your regular bill of fare you’ll find more fun in chopping down a tree than in going to a grand opera.  But the beans must be cooked right, David—­browned like a nut, juicy to the heart of ’em, and seasoned alongside a broiling duck or partridge, or a tender rabbit.  Ah!”

The Little Missioner rubbed his hands ecstatically.

David’s rejoinder, if one was on his lips, was interrupted by a violent cursing.  The train was well under way, and the baggage-man had sat down to a small table with his back toward them.  He had leaped to his feet now, his face furious, and with another demoniac curse he gave the coal skuttle a kick that sent it with a bang to the far end of the car.  The table was littered with playing cards.

“Damn ’em—­they beat me this time in ten plays!” he yelled.  “They’ve got the devil in ’em!  If they was alive I’d jump on ’em!  I’ve played this game of solitaire for nineteen years—­I’ve played a million games—­an’ damned if I ever got beat in my life as it’s beat me since we left Halifax!”

“Dear Heaven!” gasped Father Roland.  “Have you been playing all the way from Halifax?”

The solitaire fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming his seat with a low and ominous muttering, he dealt himself another hand.  In less than a minute he was on his feet again, shaking the cards angrily under the Little Missioner’s nose as though that individual were entirely accountable for his bad luck.

“Look at that accursed trey of hearts!” he demanded.  “First card, ain’t it?  First card!—­an’ if it had been the third, ’r the sixth, ’r the ninth, ’r anything except that confounded Number One, I’d have slipped the game up my sleeve.  Ain’t it enough to wreck any honest man’s soul?  I ask you—­ain’t it?”

“Why don’t you change the trey of hearts to the place that suits you?” asked David, innocently.  “It seems to me it would be very easy to move it to third place in the deck if you want it there.”

The baggage-man’s bulging eyes seemed ready to pop as he stared at David, and when he saw that David really meant what he had said a look of unutterable disgust spread over his countenance.  Then he grinned—­a sickly and malicious sort of grin.