always answered; but when I let go and forget--" Carmencita whistled a
long, low, significant note. "I guess then I don't want to be
answered. I want to smash something. But I didn't pray yesterday about
tempers and stamping. It was pretty near a miracle that I asked for,
though I said I wasn't asking for miracles or--"

"All people who pray ask for miracles. Since the days when men feared
floods and famines and pestilence and evil spirits they have cried out
for protection and propitiated what to them were gods." The
Damanarkist spit upon the ground as if to spew contempt of pretense
and cupidity. "I've no patience with it. If there is a God, He knows
the cursed struggle life is with most of us; and if there isn't,
prayer is but a waste of time."

Carmencita lifted her eyes and for a moment looked in the dark, thin
face, embittered by the losing battle of life, as if she had not heard
aright, then she laughed softly.

"If I didn't know you, dear Mr. Damanarkist, I'd think you really
meant it--what you said. And you don't. I don't guess there's anybody
in all the world who doesn't pray sometimes. Something in you does it
by itself, and you can't keep it back. You just wait until you feel
all lost and lonely and afraid, or so glad you are ready to sing out
loud, then you'll do it--inside, if you don't speak out. If I prayed
harder to have more sense and not talk so much, and not say what I
think about people, and not hate my ugly clothes so, and despise the
smell of onions and cabbage and soap-suds, I might get more answers,
but you can't get answers just by praying. You've got to work like the
mischief, and be a regular policeman over yourself and nab the bad
things the minute they poke their heads out. If I'd prayed differently