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 eight dollars, even. "What did you say your name was?" she adds.

I ain't said nothing about my name, but I did now. "Gale Galen."

"Plannin' on stayin' in Drew City for a spell?" is the next question.

"That's up to Drew City," I says, telling the truth. "I"

"What sort of business you in, Mister Galen?" she cuts me off.

The "Mister" tickled me. Why shouldn't it at seventeen? I bet the first time you was called "Mister" it tickled you too.

"The business I'm in right now, Mrs. Willcox," I says, "is looking for a job."

"Ahump!" says Mrs. Willcox, plenty suspicious.

I leave her to be that way, for the reasons that I have already made up my mind that I don't want no part of that two-by-four room for seven and a half or for nothing at all a week. Even if I am a poor fish, I am no sardine. I like plenty of parking space. So I kind of moved to the door.

"I don't think I want to take—eh—" I begin.

A door slams open downstairs with a bang, feet comes pattering up the two flights, a voice that made me snap out of it with a click calls: "Oh, mother!" and a minute later a million dollars' worth of girl yanks open the door, sees me, says, "Oh, I beg your pardon!" and blushes into two million dollars' worth of girl.

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 house 'thout bangin' the doors off?" says Mrs. Willcox, kind of peeved. Judy shakes a head of hair that must of enraged a lot of her girl friends and shows me all her nice white teeth. Me? I'm double cuckoo! I don't know what it's all about till Mrs. Willcox coughs and it wasn't from no cold. I reached in my pocket and handed over all but four bits of my bank roll.

"I'll take the room, Mrs. Willcox," I says, pushing the money into her hand. "Eh—I want to see some people here and—eh—what time is supper?"

"Dinner," says Judy, her eyes twinkling at me, "is at seven."

"I generally always exchange references," says Mrs. Willcox, looking at Judy and frowning a bit. "And"

"That's all right," I says from out in the hall. "You don't need to give me no references, Mrs. Willcox!" and then, before she could say some more, I took the air. I had to get a job. Less than a hour later I landed one as soda jerker in Ajariah Stubbs' "Cash Beats Credit!" drug store. Seven a.m. to 9.30 p.m. and very few laughs.

That was six years ago and maybe you think that's a lot of memorandum about nothing at all to remember that long. You wouldn't think so if you could of seen Judy—that's Judith Willcox. It ain't the slightest trouble for me to remember every detail in any ways connected with me meeting her. I'll remember that right up to the time they send for the embalmer! Yet I'm no memory shark. I forget plenty things, as some

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 of my many ex-bosses could tell you. They should—they told me. But certain things kind of stand out, things that I don't have to look back to, they're always as fresh and clear down to the smallest detail as if they happened yesterday. Like these—the time Dewey got rid of the Spanish navy at Manila Bay and I got rid of armfuls of special extras on a street corner in Boston, when I should of been in public school instead of being a studious pupil of nine summers in the School of Experience. . . the time. I fell off a dock into the harbor at the mellow age of eleven and find out I can't swim. . . a operation for appendicitis. . . the pay envelope from my first job. . . the first time I seen Judy Willcox. . . but that's enough to give you a idea of what kind of things sticks in my mind. I remember Dewey's sensational win because I get a nickel apiece that morning for penny papers, the flop into the harbor for the reasons that a cop pulled me out and gets both our pictures in the paper, the operation because I didn't have appendicitis, the pay envelope because I lose it, and the first time I seen Judy Willcox because she knocks me so dizzy I rush out of her mother's boarding house without any hat and had to buy another one with my last half dollar, on the account I'm afraid I can't get a job bareheaded.

Well, anyways, after a year I'm still on the wrong side of the counter, mixing a mean ice cream soda and shaking a wicked egg phosphate for old Ajariah Stubbs. I was clicking off twelve bucks the week and I had plenty responsibilities—I deliver in a flivver, prescriptions and ice cream. But I'd made up my


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 mind I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life behind no soda fountain. I didn't do all my dreaming at night and I was determined that some day I was going to mean something.

What brings me to Drew City, in the first place, is the Jersey Central Railroad and a desire to see Jack Reynolds, which jerks soda with me in Boston before he goes back to his home town, this village thirty-eight miles from New York where even the circus only stops for a day. Jack's real trade is being a advance agent for carnivals, and between seasons why, he puts on a white coat and apron and slings soda.

You'd be surprised at some of the fellows you run across in the soda-dispensing game. While I was in it, I worked side by side with actors, chorus men, song writers, press agents, scrappers, fellows working their ways through college, ex-bartenders, etc and etc., ail, except the ex-bartenders, waiting for something to turn up in their own line. You know in the big towns a first-class soda jerk can knock off eighteen to twenty bucks a week and a good head soda man which can also mix syrups can ask and get twenty-five to thirty. Plenty of milk-fed private secretaries and law clerks gets far less.

Aside from the fly-by-nights, which only goes behind a fountain while waiting for a chance to do their real trick, there's thousands of fellows has made a first-class trade out of jerking soda. And to get the important money you got to know a whole lot more about the calling than just being able to put on a white coat and apron and saying: "Get your checks


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 from the cashier, please!" Oh, my, yes! If you don't think so, try and get a job on a first-class fountain in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, and hamlets of that size. You get put through a examination that would make Edison's foolish questions sound like a kindergarten test and you got to be well heeled with references, don't think you don't.

You can tell a big league head soda jerk by the way he picks up a glass, but the acid test is what kind of chocolate syrup he can make in the summer and what kind of tomato bouillon he can throw together in the winter when hot drinks gets the call at the fountain. Plenty flavors can be bought in bulk, but no first-class fountain buys tailor-made chocolate. The most popular flavor of 'em all is always made personally by the head soda man and he takes as much pride in his chocolate as Dempsey does in his right hook. He says it with chocolate and he composes a mean syrup. You bother him when he's making up a batch and good-bye job! Fountains is made or broke amongst soda jerks by their chocolate syrup and making it right is a sure enough gift.

Well, when I get to Drew City, Jack Reynolds has gone away a week before with some carnival, so my chances of busting head first into the theatrical business is all shot to pieces. I ain't got enough jack to get back to Boston, and New York frightens me in the short view I get of it changing trains. I don't even know a street address there and it looks so big and cold-hearted—everything and everybody rushing and tearing along with a kind of wild, worried look on


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308 whatever he had done before to Etzel’s warriors in strife was as a wind to the fury with which bold Aldrian’s son now fought. Ritschart and Gerbart, Helfrich and Wichart had spared themselves full seldom in many battle storms; this they now made Gunther’s liegemen note full well. Wolfbrand, too, was seen in the strife bearing him in lordly wise. Old Hildebrand fought as though he raged. At Wolfhart’s hands many good knights, struck by the sword, must needs fall dead down into the blood. Thus the bold champions and good avenged Knight Rüdeger.

Then Lord Siegstab fought as his prowess bade him. Ho, what good helmets of his foes this son of Dietrich’s sister clove in the strife! Nor might he ever do better in the fray. When sturdy Folker espied that bold Siegstab hewed a bloody stream from the hard armor rings, wroth of mood the hero grew. He sprang to meet him, and Siegstab lost his life full soon at the fiddler’s hands, for Folker gave him such a sample of his art, that he soon lay dead, slain by his sword. This old Hildebrand avenged, as his might did bid him.

“Alas for my dear lord,” spake Master Hildebrand, “who lieth here dead at Folker’s hands. Now shall the fiddler no longer live.”

How might bold Hildebrand ever be fiercer? Folker he smote, so that on all sides the clasps flew to the walls of the hall from helmet and shield of the doughty gleeman. Thus stout Folker was done to death. At this the men of Dietrich pressed forward to the strife. They smote so that the armor rings whirled far and wide, and high through the air the sword-points were


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 their faces—well, it scares me stiff, no fooling! Then, like I said, along comes Judy Willcox, and I hang my hat up in Drew City and call it home.

At first I don't make the headway with Judy that I'd like to, and that's a fact. She was sixteen when I hit Drew City and on her seventeenth birthday I gave her a gold-banded fountain pen with her initials on it. Judy got a total of nine presents for that birthday. Five of 'em was gold-banded fountain pens and I wish now I had gave her my present in cash and she could of got something she really needed—probably fountain pen ink.

Anyways I made myself a lot of friends among the fellows and girls that went to Drew City Prep and come in the drug store every afternoon for their sodas and sundaes. I went to work and invented a drink called Drew City Surprise, and the gang went crazy about it. It had everything in it but the kitchen stove and we got twenty cents a copy for it. I had a terrible battle with the boss the first time I paste up the sign on the mirror back of the fountain. He claims they ain't nobody living will pay twenty cents for no soda fountain drink, unless I put a dime in each and every glass, but I says if I can get them to try a Drew City Surprise they will pay twenty cents or even more for it, for the reasons that it's something new and a bit different from plain ordinary soda fountain drinks. Then again, the high price will make 'em think it must be good and the fellows will want to show off in front of their girls so they'll order it.

Well, I am right and old Ajariah smiles for about


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 the first time since he found a dollar bill wedged under the cash-register drawer when he bought the store. He says I ought to be a salesman, and maybe next year he'll put me on the drug counter, where the patent medicines and the 85 per cent profits is. But I can't get him to try a "Drew City Surprise" himself, because he says he has watched me and I never make it the same way twice and that's a fact, for I forget how I make it the first time. Still and all, they's no complaints from nobody, so why worry?

After you leave Drew City Prep you go either to Princeton or to work, according to how is things with your people. But outside of Judy Willcox, most of the gang that come in the drug store belongs to families as rich as a custard, and they all go to some swell college the same as their fathers and mothers done before them, just like I went to work the same day as my fathers and mothers done before me. The routine is a little different on the account everybody is equal at birth when it don't mean nothing, but if they was all equal at around seventeen, why, it would mean plenty! In that case I would of been going to this Drew City Prep and getting my three squares a day, too, instead of jerking soda for Ajariah Stubbs so's in the order to eat and depending on what I can remember of this and that to get a education.

Among the first friends I make in Drew City is Rutledge Spencer-Brock, a regular guy even if his name does sound like two collars and a Pullman car. His old man is down to his last twenty million, and some day Spence will be left about everything but


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 Niagara Falls and South Dakota, but he don't put on no dog with me in spite of that. He's about as old as me, but taller and thinner and one swell-looking fellow. Most of these flappers was just wild about him, and why shouldn't they be wild over a baby like that, which can't miss being a millionaire and just about owns this Drew City Prep? He was pitcher on the baseball team, quarter-back and captain of the football team, and the same week I arrived in Drew City he goes to work and takes over the interscholastic record for the dash of 440 yards. Likewise, he's a dancing fool and throats a cruel tenor—which makes him about perfect from the girls' standpoint, hey?

Anyhow, me and Spence gets along like the Two Orphans. He had a elegant racing car, and we burn up the State road to Trenton in that sweet running boat many's the time. We go duck shooting and fishing and like that together and the first Sunday I was off we both sneaked over to New York and went to this Coney Island. Some joint! We ride on everything in the place from the merry-go-round to the shoot-the-shoots and act like a pair of ten-year-old kids in the toy department the week before Xmas. Some of the things, like the roller coaster and the Dizzy Dip, why, we stay on a dozen times. I had eleven bucks saved up for a suit and that lasted about as long as a leaf of cabbage would last at a rabbits' convention. Money and me is easy separated, and that's a fact! While Spence is in a cigar store phoning his mother where he is, I blowed two of the last three of my eleven bucks taking a bunch of dirty-faced kids


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 around on the scenic railway. Them kids is hanging around watching it like it is a ham bone and they are all collies, and every now and then they get chased away by the guy running the thing.

Well, after a while I can't stand looking at them, so I took the whole mob for a ride and be done with it!

When Spence came out of the cigar store he bets me five bucks he can wallop a punching-bag machine harder than I can. So he hauls off and hits this bag and the dial registers 1,150. Then I stepped back and slammed it as hard as I could and the arrow points to 2,025, and Spence says the machine must be out of order. So we punch it again and this time Spence hits 1,475 and hurts his hand and I hit 2,625 and hurt his bank roll, as he immediately hands over the five bucks with a grin, remarking that he would hate to get into a fight with me. Well, I wouldn't get in no fight with him no matter what he done, because he is aces with me. But I would fight for Spence in a minute, don't think I wouldn't!

But to get to the point, I guess I will always look back on the next day as one of the most exciting days I ever had in my life. It's a big day for Drew City likewise, because Knockout Kelly, the, comes down there the day before to train for his fight with Jackie Frayne in New York. The bunch stops in on their ways to school the following morning and all the fellows is talking about going out in the afternoon to Knockout Kelly's camp and watch him do his stuff.

Spence begs me to come out with him, so I ask old Ajariah can I have the day off and I won't take my


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 regular day next week. But they is nothing stirring! Ajariah says he can't let me get away on the account he's going out to look at a sheriff's sale. Where he went was out to Knockout Kelly's training camp, because Spence seen him there and told me.

Why Ajariah Stubbs should be so keen about boxing I don't know, unless it's because he's about fifteen years older than the Rocky Mountains and will soon be meeting the busiest boxer of 'em all—the undertaker.

Well, Judy Willcox comes in with the rest of the gang that day and gives me a smile which cost Ajariah Stubbs exactly three cents because I drop a glass as the result. Judy has just went to work and had her hair bobbed off, and she asks me how do I like it, taking off her hat and flopping the hair around to show me. But whenever I see her face, why, that's all I can look at, and she could of had a basket of eggs on her head and I wouldn't of knew it. I'm looking into the bluest and shineyest eyes I ever seen or want to and I'm kind of trembling like I done when I first seen her, and like I always do when I see her since. Then a nasty voice says:

"Come on, snap out of it—do your sleeping at night! Two orange phosphates."

This is a guy called Maurice Dempster, and he's carrying Judy's books for her, the big stiff! His old man owned the carpet factory here, which seems to make this fathead think he's the duck's quack. We like each other the same way a rat loves a ferret and the fact that he's stuck on Judy don't make me want


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 to kiss him every time I run across him either. I don't know how Judy could ever see this baby, with his fat face and beady little eyes, which is still beady even when he laughs.

"Oh, don't be so cranky, Rags, you're like an old bear!" says Judy, and she don't seem to like this dumbbell hollering at me. "Besides I don't want an orange phosphate, I want a chocolate fudge sundae."

"I should say not!" says Rags, like he's her father. They call him "Rags" on the account of his old man's carpet mill. "I should say not! It's too soon after your breakfast. Hurry up with those phosphates, will you?"

"Be yourself and quit that hollering!" I says, laying a chocolate fudge sundae and a exceedingly bitter orange phosphate down in front of 'em.

"Can't you understand English?" snorts Rags, "I didn't order a sundae, I said two"

"Well, I ordered a sundae," butts in Judy, dipping her spoon in this rich goo and rolling her eyes up at the ceiling. "This is perfectly heavenly!" she says. So is she!

Rags gets red in the face and Judy catches him in the mirror back of the fountain and she winks and laughs. Acting like he's worried about something, Rags gives me a horrible look.

"Thirty cents, please!" I says to him.

He begins going through his pockets and his face is now the color of a ripe tomato. "I—eh—I've only got—I find I have only twenty cents with me," he stutters, glaring at me. "That would have been enough


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432 sea-robbers got possession of the Russian network of waterways, overcame the Finns and Slavs, and the Scandinavian dynasty of the house of Rurik (= Old Norse: Hroerekr) created the powerful Russian State.

As in the North Germano-Slavic, so in the South Nomado-Slavic States were formed. A nomadic milk-feeding horde dominated a Slavic vegetarian peasant class. A similar state of affairs lasted till yesterday in Ferghana, the former Khanate of Khokand, where the vegetarian Tadjiks languished from the earliest times in the basest nomadic servitude. The same thing can be also traced back far into ancient times in East Europe on the western border of the steppe zone. So we find it as early as Ephorus (fourth century B.C.).

A horde of Sarmatae, the Iazygians, migrated into Central Hungary where (c. A.D. 337) the serfs of the Sarmatae, the Sarmatae Limigantes, revolted against their lords, the Sarmatae Arcaragantes or Sarmatae Liberi, and repulsed them. Here we have a similar double stratum to that which Ephorus mentions, and because the Tabula Peutingeriana (about the third century A.D.) mentions the Venedi Sarmatae and the Lupiones Sarmatae next to the pure nomadic wagon-inhabiting Sarmatae Hamaxobii, Sarmatae Vagi, many assume that these serfs of the Sarmatae, the Limigantes, were Slavs. The oldest explicit information concerning a Nomado-Slavic State on the lower Danube is to be found in Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus of the sixth — probably even the fourth — century A.D., viz. that of the galactophagous Phisōnitae or Danubians (Phisōn according to Marquart is equivalent to Danubius) and the vegetarian Slavs.

The best account we have is of the similar Avaro-Slavic State. The dominating Avar nomad class was absorbed as a nation and language by the subjugated Slavs, but even after the destruction of the Avar Empire it survived socially with Slav names, as is shewn by the remarkable passage in the Arabian geographer of the ninth century: "The seat of their prince lies in the middle of the Slav land. ... This prince possesses mares, whose milk ... is his only food." As mare-milkers he and the dominating class were mounted nomads and, as the date proves, of Avar origin. This information alone destroys our former conceptions of the character of the Slav States north of the middle Danube and the Carpathians, and compels us to assume that nomadic States extended far into the territory of the Balts and even as far as the Baltic. The seafarer Wulfstan at the end of the ninth century says of the Eastland (Prussia, east of the mouth of the Vistula): "Their king and the richest men drink mares' milk but the poor and the slaves drink mead."


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 for the two orange phosphates I ordered. I don't see why I should have to pay for your stupidity—you misunderstood my order and"

Judy laughs and opens her purse.

"Oh, I'll pay for my own luxuries," she says, slapping a dime on the counter besides Rags's two. Just to make Rags feel bad, I rung it up. Imagine a guy with a carpet mill in his family taking a girl in a drug store for a drink and then having to borrow the money from her to pay the bill!

Rags is fit to be tied and he gulps down his phosphate and jumps off the stool. His face is all screwed up in a knot and I don't blame him, as I put plenty phosphate into his glass! Then he growls at Judy to hurry up or they'll be late.

"I'm going to report you to Mr. Stubbs!" he snarls at me.

"Do that!" I says politely, polishing up back of the fountain.

"If you do any such thing, Rags," says Judy, very cold, getting up and wiping her wonderful lips with the paper napkin I give her—"if you do any such thing, I'll have nothing further to do with you!"

"Laugh that off!" I says to Rags—and make a enemy for life.

Judy comes in by herself again after school in the afternoon and they ain't nobody in the store but me. The boys is all out at Knockout Kelly's camp, and the girls is busy getting their costumes ready for a masquerade that Stella Armitage, Spence's girl friend, is giving the next night. Judy orders up a chocolate


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 fudge sundae, and while I am going out of my way to make this the greatest sundae ever placed in a dish, I happen to look at her books which she has laid on the counter. Most of 'em is Latin, Greek, and French and I am thinking I only wish I had a chance to study them languages and maybe get away from the soda business and not be no dumbbell all my life.

But I am having plenty trouble with the English language then, as far as that part of it goes! That's what gets me sore when I think things over, like I do now and then when I ain't thinking of Judy and how much chocolate syrup I got on hand and will I ever get any more than twelve bucks a week. I think suppose I did get a crack at a job with some kind of a future in it right then—what good would that do me when, as far as education is concerned, I don't know what it's all about?

They must be something I can do which will get me further than jerking soda will, I think, but how am I ever going to find out what that something is, with the schooling I got? They may be a big league lawyer, or a first class doctor, or a world beating business man in me somewheres, but how can I bring that out when I have got to stick back of this fountain or else see how long can I fast? There ought to be some way of guys like me getting a crack at things. I bet there's lots of rich fellows in college which don't give a dam what they do after their four years is up. Well I'd of give a leg for even one year at college and I bet when I come out I'd of did a whole lot more than just go to the annual football games, and that's a fact!


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 Anyway I slapped a dollar's worth of whipped cream on the top of this chocolate fudge sundae and put it in front of Judy, and then I notice she's watching me, with a queer look on her pretty face.

"Gale," she says, "do you ever think about your future?"

Now, ain't that funny, when that's just what I been thinking about?

"Sure!" I says. "I think my future is all behind me."

"No—I'm serious," says Judy. "And this whipped cream is delicious! What did you do before you came to Drew City, or is that too personal?"

"Not at all, Judy," I says. "It ain't often I get a chance to—well, get this kind of stuff off my chest. They is nothing very exciting in my life's history, so far. I was born of poor but American parents and I begin earning my keep at about eight—in the morning and of age. I've sold papers, split bobbins in a cotton mill, been a errand boy, printer's devil, and took out orders for a butcher—that being about the only time I actually delivered the goods!"

"But when did you go to school?" asks Judy.

"Before I got into the newspaper business—selling 'em," I says.

"And that was when you were only eight years old?" she asks, and her eyes gets wider.

I nods.

"Well," says Judy, very severe, "I think you must have been a very, very bad little boy to stay away from school just to sell newspapers for a few pennies!"


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 "Judy," I says, "I would of been a very, very thin little boy if I hadn't of stayed away from school to sell newspapers. We got so crazy about food in our family that we just had to have some every day or we wouldn't play!"

Judy stops eating that swell sundae and gives me a long look. Then she nods her head and sighs.

"I—I understand, now," she says, kind of soft. "Oh—that's criminal!"

"Well, Judy," I says, "they's plenty fellows like me, as far as that part of it goes. And then, again, somebody has got to be soda jerkers, I guess—eh—" I am trying to laugh matters off.

"Surely, Gale, you don't expect to be a soda clerk all your life?" she cuts in on me. The sundae is melting away.

"No, Judy, I don't!" I says slowly, sitting on the ice-cream tank back of the counter. "For one thing, I'd have a hard time shaking up malted milks when I got to be eighty-five, and for another thing, Judy, I'm going to get somewhere! Right now I ain't got no more idea than a baby of what I'm going to be. I'm busy now living . . . some job for us guys. But I ain't going to just sit back and moan because I fail to get born in a mint, like Rags Dempster and that bunch. I got too much fighting blood in me to moan, Judy! I'm going to get me a education. I'm going to get that by hook or crook! I got to get some trick which will keep me alive while I'm plowing through books like you got there and trying to understand what they mean. Say—yesterday they was a lot of them


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 rich guys from the golf club in here and they're talking about the new locker room they're putting in. Each one of them babies is socked for a thousand apiece—nothing at all to them. Why, I'd live a year on a thousand bucks, and I could go to some snappy school like you do, too! Well, I'll get the thousand, or"

"Honestly, of course!" butts in Judy, as serious as if she's forty instead of seventeen. But then girls is always older than their actual age, ain't they?

"Do I look crooked?" I grins.

Judy laughs and shakes her head. "Well, I must go," she says. "This has been awfully interesting, hasn't it?" Then, like she just thought of it, she says: "Oh—you know that Stella Armitage's masquerade dance is to-morrow night?"

"I hear them all talking about it—yes," I says, kind of surprised. "But what does that mean to me?"

This is one of the very few times I ever see Judy act timid and shy.

"Well—well, the girls are to choose their own escorts and"

"And you're going with Rags Dempster!" I finishes for her, kicking a empty fruit can the length of the fountain.

"I am not!" says Judy, straightening her hat in the mirror. "I'm going with you! Are these caramels fresh?"

What do I care about caramels? I am around the counter in a jump!

"Is that level—you mean that, Judy?" I holler.

"Of course!" laughs Judy, moving to the door.


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 "You mustn't get so excited. I'm going to be an Oriental dancer, but don't tell any of the crowd if they come in here to-day. What are you going to be?"

"I think I'll go as a soda dispenser!" I says, still in a trance from her asking me at all. "Or else I'll empty a bowl of whipped cream on my head and pretend I'm a nut sundae. I—eh—don't worry about that part of it, Judy, I'll dig up some kind of a layout. But, say, listen—are you just asking me to go with you so's to steam Rags Dempster up?"

"If you think so, don't come!" snaps Judy. Then she's laughing at me again. "However, Mr. Gale Galen, if you decide that you can condescend to accompany me, we should be at Stella's about half past eight."

"But listen, Judy, you"

A wave of her hand, a slammed door and she's gone. It's just Ajariah Stubbs's drug store again and I am just a soda jerk. Both me and the store seemed something entirely different when she was in there!

Well, the next thing is can I get off the night of the party and also where am I going to get me a costume for this masquerade, in twenty-four hours' notice? I got brains enough to know that this ain't simply a case of putting paint on your face and wearing girl's clothes, like the kids does on Hollow Eve. Stella Armitage's house is bigger than the library, which it looks a whole lot like from the outside, and they're the only ones in Drew City which has what is called Jap house boys. Likewise, they got two chauffeurs and a imported butler and pay a fearful income tax. Still.


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 Stella and me and Spence has often kidded together at the fountain and Stella's never let her people's money tie up conversation as far as I'm concerned.

That night when I come back from supper, or "dinner," as Judy nicknames it, I ask Ajariah can I get off the following evening at seven instead of half past nine, and after plenty hemming and hawing he says yes. Having got that all settled, why, the next thing is what am I going to wear to the masquerade? I call up my pal, Spence, and he says he's got a extry devil's suit and he'll let me borrow it, because he's going as a pirate.

So a few minutes before I lock up the store, Spence brings down the devil's suit and it is certainly a swell costume. But when we come to trying it on me downstairs in the stock room, why, the only thing fits me is the mask on the account I am broader across the shoulders than Spence. So the devil's suit is out and it looks like I'll be out too, unless I can scrape some kind of a costume together. Well, while we're standing there trying to figure some kind of a disguise for me, I am looking around the stock room when I see something that gives me a big idea. I slap my hands together and tell Spence to go on home, because I have got my costume and I'm all set.

That's all I would tell him and he immediately hollers his head off, because he says he has told me what he's going to be dressed like and I'm holding out on him. So then I told him that unless I am very much mistaken I am going as a clown and does he think that will be O. K.? Spence says he didn't see


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 why not, for the reasons that they will certainly be at least one more clown there if Rags Dempster goes, whether Rags is dressed that way or not.

After Spence goes home I lock up the store and take a pair of scissors from the surgical-goods case, a couple of spools of thread and a package of needles. Then I go down in the stock room and wrap up a armful of cheese-cloth which we use to strain syrups with and a jar of carmine coloring extract which we use to make fresh strawberry flavor with. The cheese-cloth and the carmine is the things which I happened to see in the stock room and which give me the idea for me masquerade suit. I took 'em all home with me and I sit up cutting, painting, and sewing this here cheese-cloth till six o-clock in the morning, but by that time I have got a classy disguise in the shape of a clown's costume.

It was one tough job and I'm all in by the time I've tried this on me for the sixty-ninth and last time. I got carmine coloring all over my hands and then there is some which I got to scrub off the floor. I have rammed that needle in my fingers all night long and I'm so sleepy that it's nearly more than I can do to keep my eyes open. Yet with all that I feel perfect, because I am going to take Judy to this swell racket and I have got a bear of a costume and to ask more would be ridiculous.

Well it is almost six o'clock when I get done tailoring and I have got to open up the store at seven. I can see there is no use of me going to bed at all, so I sneak downstairs and tore off a cold bath and let it go at that.


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 Judy don't have to get up as early as I do and I don't see her at breakfast, but Mrs. Willcox, which has been the same as a mother to me, claims I got rings under my eyes and look terrible. She insists on me taking a swallow of cod liver oil before sitting down to the table and it makes me as sick as a dog and all I can eat is a cup of coffee.

I certainly burnt Ajariah Stubbs up that day and that's a fact. A couple of times I fell asleep behind the fountain and I give a guy pepsin bismuth and a stiff argument, when all he says he asked for was a plain chocolate soda. By dousing my head in cold water in the syrup room and drinking a couple dollars' worth of bromo-seltzer, why, I managed to keep awake till four o'clock, when Judy calls me up and what she told me kept me awake for the rest of the day without no trouble at all!

The minute I hear Judy's voice I know something's up.

"Gale," she says, "please don't be angry with me—but—but I can't go to Stella's with you to-night!"

"Why, what's the matter, Judy?" I says, kind of scared. "Are you sick?"

"No—I'm all right, Gale," she says, still in that funny voice. "It's—it's—Gale, this is very unpleasant and I may as well get it over with at once! Stella—Stella doesn't want you to come, and I think she's horrid, and if I hadn't gone to such trouble about my costume, I wouldn't go either!"

I come near swooning away in a faint right in that phone booth! I feel like yesterday I see in the papers


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 where I have been left a million bucks and this morning I read where it's April Fool. Here I have sit up all night long and—well, what's the use! Knocking around since I been a kid has made me a pretty hard-boiled egg, but they's a lump in my throat when Judy's "Hello, hello—are you there, Gale?" brings me back to life.

"What got her sore at me?" I says finally. "Stella Armitage was in here only a couple of days ago and we're kidding about this and that. Why"

"Yes, and she'll probably be in there again doing the same thing, and that's why I hate her!" says Judy. "Oh, don't think I didn't give her a piece of my mind, Gale. As if it should make any difference what you are—eh—I mean, when we've all been so friendly. It isn't as if you were just an ordinary, everyday soda clerk that none of us knew—eh—or"

Judy rattles along kind of nervous, but I miss quite a lot of what she's saying. I feel sick, no fooling! I know what's the matter now and why this Stella Armitage declares me out of her party. Stella Armitage is Stella Armitage, and I'm just a soda jerk which blew in from nobody knows. The kidding at the fountain is one thing; inviting me to her house is something entirely different. Right away I see where I fit in with this gang—nowheres! A lot of other plans I had made blows up with the one of going to the masquerade and the first time Judy stops for breath I says I hope she has a swell time and.

Then I get red-headed.

I ain't good enough to be asked to this Armitage


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 Jane's house, hey? Well,—I swear to myself that the day will come when she'll be tickled silly to have me, or even to say she knew me! I'm good enough for Judy Willcox and Spence—and then I begin to wonder what Spence thinks about me being gave the air. Stella's his girl and he means more than she does in the town. He's been palling around with me, too, and of course he knows I expected to go to this party. Well, I get the idea that maybe he's also laughed me off.

I went down in the stock room, where I had hung up my clown's layout to let the carmine dry, and they ain't nobody in no hospital nowheres feels half so bad as I do! I look at this here masquerade costume, which half a hour ago seems very nifty to me, and now it's just a lot of, which I have went to work and ruined by dabbing it with carmine. I think of how I sit on the side of my bed all night when I can hardly keep awake, jabbing that needle into my fingers and attempting to learn the mysteries of sewing at a minute's notice. I think of how I kept trying it on and taking it off, and taking it off and trying it on, and—well, I make a wild grab at that clown's costume and I rip it to shreds, and that kind of eases my feelings a little, anyways!

When I go back to the fountain I begin polishing up, and a guy can do a great deal of first-class thinking when he's polishing something, if he ain't one of them whistlers or hummers. What I mean is, did you ever notice how some people, mostly women, will keep humming or whistling when they're polishing and dusting


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 and the etc.? Then they's others which kind of goes off in a trance when they get a polishing rag and a silver bowl or the like in their hands, and, while they are putting a shine on it, why, they will do all their thinking for the week.

Well, while I am making the nickel plate look like a mirror, I am thinking that ten or fifteen years from then I will come back to Drew City in a Pullman called "Fauntleroy," or something classy like that, and the whole burg will be at the station to meet me, waving flags and hollering "Hurray for Gale Galen, our new, rich, and popular governor!" After I make a few speeches and shake hands with one and all, I will order Stella Armitage's big white house tore down for some legal reasons, and, of course, Rags Dempster will be in jail by that time, and I will haughtily refuse to turn him loose. Then I will give Mrs. Willcox something like a million and make Drew City the capital of New Jersey; but me and Judy will put the governor's mansion on Riverside Drive, New York. Old Ajariah Stubbs will be going around throwing out his chest and saying: "Why, that boy worked for me once, and look at him now!"

By this time it's six o'clock, and I made up my mind that as long as I ain't going to the masquerade party I won't take the night off, as what is there for me to do with it? If I had only knew the various things which was going to happen to me! Anyhow, I tell old Ajariah that I am going to get my supper and then I will come back and work. This tickles him silly, on the account it gives him the chance to go down to Kale


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 Yackley's cigar store and play checkers with Judge Tuckerman all night. They gamble for ten cents a game, but you would never think there was that amount at stake if you watched 'em. You'd think they was betting each other five thousand dollars on each and every move.

I don't go home for supper, because I don't want to run into Judy, who'll probably be all dressed up for the party, and that would only get me feeling bad again. So I had some ham and beans and coffee in Red Fisher's Palace Eating House, and come right back to the store. Then the excitement begins! Ajariah is at the phone, and when he hangs up he looks at his watch and says: "Seems to me like you go clear to Trenton for your meals. Hump yourself now and git out this here order!"

With that he hands me a slip of paper, and when I say that you could of took that paper to a Chinese laundry and got your collars out with it, why, you will get a idea of how Ajariah writes. But finally I make out: "I gallon vanilla, I gallon chocolate, I gallon orange ice."

"Where's it go?" I says, starting out for the flivver.

"Up to Armitage's," says Ajariah. "Must be—carryin's on there to-night!"

Hot coffee!

I like to fall through a show case. Imagine asking me to take this ice cream around to the back door of Stella Armitage's house, right while this masquerade's going on. To be flagged from the party itself and then made to deliver their refreshments to the kitchen! Sup-


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 pose Judy sees me—or this cuckoo, Rags Dempster? It ain't enough to make a tramp out of me by canceling my invitation, but I got to be made a fool of like this in front of a girl I'm crazy about and a guy that's trying to make her!

"What ails you?" snorts Ajariah, looking at me over his cheaters. "You sick?"

"Yes, sir," I says, kind of faint; "I'm terrible sick, Mister Stubbs! I—I can't haul that ice cream up to Armitage's—I—you don't understand"

Pears to me like you're a-doin' too much runnin' around at nights!" growls old Ajariah, coming out from behind the counter. "You been half asleep round here the hull day. Wouldn't be surprised if you wasn't gambling all night with them loafers in Nickmeyer's garage. That's all's the matter with you; you ain't been to bed. I kin tell by your eyes—look like two burnt holes in a blanket!"

"I wasn't doing no gambling," I says. "I never been in Nickmeyer's except for gas and oil."

"Where was you, then?" snarls Ajariah. "Speak up now!"

I says nothing at all. I ain't going to tell him I sit up all night making the clown's costume for Stella Armitage's masquerade and have him cackle his head off!

"Can't say, eh?" he grunts. "I thot so. Well, you shake a leg and git that cream up to Armitage's, or you won't have no more job here than a rabbit!"

I know he means it. So I drag them cans of ice cream out to the flivver and run 'em up to Armitage's,


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 wishing I would have the good luck to hit a telegraph pole on the ways over.

Stella's house is lit up like a church, and there's more cars outside it than there is at a auto show. I see Spence's boat which I have took many's the ride in, but I don't see Spence, or nobody else, thank Heavens, till I run my flivver up the drive in the back.

The delivery and servants' entrance runs along the lawn, which is all fixed up with Chinese lanterns and streamers of different colored ribbon, and the Jap house boys is going around fixing up the tables. Most of the gang is there already, and I hear 'em laughing and kidding each other, and some of 'em-is beginning to dance to the music of Eddie Granger's Vesper A. C. Jazz Band. Stella's old man hired the boys and I hear he paid Eddie five hundred bucks for the night and on top of that they all got a swell feed after the party was over.

Well, I manage to unload the ice cream without none of the gay masqueraders seeing me, but as I am backing the flivver around to come down the driveway, I get it and I get it good! They's a couple dancing right beside the hedge which separates the lawn from the drive, and they look up when they hear the noise of my bus. Its only by dumb luck that I don't run the flivver right into the hedge, because the couple is Judy Willcox and Rags Dempster.

Both of 'em is masked, but I'd know 'em if they had checked their faces with their hats! I know every line of Judy's, the way she carries herself and that dimple in her chin, which shows under the edge of the mask—I'd pick her out from a million without no trouble, be-


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My Country 'Tis of Thee

 * "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (1832), a song by Samuel Francis Smith
 * "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (1938), an editorial by Ronald Glenn Callvert

title: My Country 'Tis of Thee


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 cause I'm cuckoo over her. And I know every line of Rags Dempster because I like him the same way I like working fourteen hours a day for twelve bucks a week. As she told me, Judy is dressed like a Oriental dancing girl, but Judy would make a Oriental dancing girl take poison! Rags is wearing an Indian chief's layout, for which his face is perfect.

Judy waves her hand to me, and I manage to tip my cap, and this Rags throws back his head and laughs. "Wait there for a minute, boy!" he hollers. "Wait there a minute and I'll send the butler out with a sandwich for you; you look hungry!"

Just before I shot through the drive in the flivver I hear Judy bawling Rags out. A little satisfaction, but not the satisfaction I wanted right then. To of kicked Rags over the hedge would of been much better!

That old tin can never traveled so fast in its life as it done from Stella Armitage's house to the store. Rounding the corner of Jefferson Lane to turn into First Street, I crashed over one of the three traffic standards in Drew City, and put ten years on Hank King, which happened to be standing beside it. I make Joe Lannon put his fish wagon up on the pavement, and when Constabule Watson comes running out at Valley Street, yelling at me and waving his club, why, I chased him almost into the station-house doors. That cost me plenty the next day, but I ain't thinking about that part of it then. I'm thinking about Judy Willcox and Rags Dempster, and why is it I didn't jump over that hedge at Stella Armitage's and have it out with Rags for once and for all!


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Rh seen to fly. From the helmets they drew the warm gushing stream of blood. When Hagen of Troneg saw Folker dead, that was the greatest sorrow, that he had gained at the feasting in kinsman or in liegeman. Alas, how fiercely Hagen gan venge the knight! “Now old Hildebrand shall not profit by this deed. My helpmate lieth slain by the hero’s hand, the best war comrade that I did ever win.” Higher he raised his helmet, and ran, slashing as he went.

Stout Heifrich slew Dankwart. Loth enow it was to Gunther and Giselher, when they saw him fall in cruel need, but with his own hands he himself had well avenged his death. Meanwhile Wolthart raged back and forth, hewing alway King Gunther’s men. For the third time he was come through the hall, and many a warrior fell, struck by his hands.

Then Lord Giselher cried out to Wolfhart: “Alas, that I have ever gained so grim a foe! Noble knight and brave, now address you unto me. I'll help to make an end; this may be no longer.”

At this Wolfhart turned him in strife to Giselher, and each smote other many a gaping wound. He pressed so mightily toward the king, that the blood beneath his feet spurted high above his head. With grim and fearful blows the son of fair Uta then greeted the brave knight Wolfhart. However strong the warrior, he might not save his life. Never could so young a king have been more brave; Wolfhart he smote through his stout hauberk, that his blood streamed down from the wound. Unto death he wounded Dietrich’s liegeman. None save a champion had done such deed. When brave Wolfhart felt the


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 By the time I got to the store I am in fine shape to commit murder, but old Ajariah is crazy to get to his checker tourney with Judge Tuckerman, and he hobbled right away without saying a word to me. If he had I would of surely lost my job right then and there, no fooling.

I'm just going to close up the store at half past nine when two fellows comes in and sits down at the fountain. They're a couple of tough-looking babies, for a fact. The youngest one of 'em has a flat nose and a cap pulled down over his eyes, and he's wearing a dirty white sweater. I never seen either of 'em before, and that's funny in Drew City, where I know everybody, you might say.

"A couple of ginger ales and make it snappy!" says the guy with the sweater.

That's no way to talk to me the way I'm feeling then!

"Take your time!" I says. "I got everything all closed here for the night and"

"C'mon, c'mon, don't give me no argument; get them ginger ales out here, yokel!" he growls.

I kind of trembled, and I see in the mirror back of the fountain that my face is good and white. I got my mind all made up what I'm going to do when I hear a familiar honk honk outside the door. That's the signal Spence used to give when he come down to wait for me to close the store at night. In another minute he comes running in, all dressed up like a pirate and his face is red and mad looking.

"Gale, I just found out that—oh, about the reason


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 you didn't come up to Stella's to-night," he pants. "I hope you don't think I had anything to do with that. I've had a frightful row with Stella over it, and"

The fellow with the sweater gets off the stool and walks up to the end of the fountain. He looks at Spence in the pirate's suit and back to his friend with a nasty grin. Then he turns to me, and the grin has went.

"Say, you big dumbell, get busy on them ginger ales or I'll slap you for a mock orange!" he snarls.

I am talking to Spence and I pay no attention. "That's all right, Spence," I says. "I don't blame you and maybe Stella's right. Go back and have a good time. I don't belong and"

But Spence is looking over my shoulder at the other fellow, and Spence's eyes is wide and scared. He seems to be trying to make some signals to me with 'em too. The tough-looking baby suddenly grabs me by the shoulder and gives me a push. "Get back there and give us them drinks!" he bellers. "You"

Never mind what he called me. I swung around and looked at him, and my mouth slips into a nervous grin, which I want to stop and can't. Then I shot out my right arm as hard as I could—like when I slammed that punching bag at Coney Island with Spence. My fist landed fair and square on this fellow's chin, and it felt like hitting the side of a building, but he went down on his back like I'd stabbed him through the heart.

Spence yelled, and the other fellow let out a terrible curse. But I felt wonderful. I never knocked nobody down before in my life, and I want to say it is quite a


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 sensation! My nerves gets quiet and my temper gets cool, and as I blew on my sore knuckles and little finger, which is beginning to swell and feels kind of numb, the only thing I'm wishing is that this fellow on the floor will get up and come at me!

Spence and the fellow that come to the store with the guy I hit is standing there staring at me like they can't believe their eyes. The stranger finally bends down and iooks over his friend on the floor.

"You hit hard!" he grunts at me. "Get me a bottle of ammonia and some ice water."

I got 'em and he douses the cold water on this fellow's face, and, uncorking the ammonia, holds it under his nose. Pretty soon my victim's eyes opens, and the other fellow starts helping him up, with his face half turned to me.

"Know who you just stopped?" he says in a odd voice. I shook my head. What difference did that make?

"He's just Knockout Kelly," he says; at's all he is!"

"And you knocked him out—you knocked him out!" sings Spence, dancing around wildly.

Well, I get sick to my stomach, and that's a fact. I hit Knockout Kelly, the prize fighter! Why, I thought, he'll get up off that floor and about murder me! And he did straighten up on his feet just then and make a rush at me, but his friend holds him back.

"C'mere, you sap!" he hisses at him. "What d'ye wanna do—break your hands on this guy? We'll square this in good time!" He turns around to me


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 and winks heavy. "You—eh—you wanna beg K. O.'s pardon, don't you?"

Don't I? Say, you ought to see me grab this chance to escape being killed. I can't get my hand out quick enough. Imagine me hitting Knockout Kelly!

Knockout Kelly just barely touched my hand. "We'll get together on this again, feller!" he mumbles, not very forgiving, I must say.

"Sure!" says his friend, smiling at me and patting Knockout Kelly's shoulders. "Sure—we'll play you again some time. But now—eh—ever do any boxin', kid?" he asks me, looking me up and down.

"No, sir," I says; "I never did."

"Well—you're goin '  to!" he says. "I'm Nate Shapiro, K. O.'s pilot. Come up to the Commercial House at ten to-morrow. I wanna talk to you. You're one sweet puncher, if you are a hick, and—"

"I can't get there till noon," I butts in. "I got to open up the store at seven-thirty."

"Open up nothin'!" snorts Nate Shapiro. "You're all through mixin' banana punches and the like. I'll get you more jack for your punches than you'll ever see here. C'mon, K. O."

And they went out.


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same night, when they have all went to bed in Mrs. Willcox's boarding house, I sneaked downstairs, got Judy's schoolbooks off the hall rack, and took 'em up to my room because after I have retired I find that me and sleep can't seem to get acquainted. The first one I open up is a French Dictionary. It could of been a Chinese Grammer for all it means to me! The only French I know is "Oo la la" and "Croix de Guerre," and now that the war's supposed to be over, why, both them remarks has went out of use. The next novel is entitled "Al Gebra" and is simply a case of crossing the alphabet with arithmetic. Two passages of Al gets me dizzy. "How much is twice H?" "Divide Y Z by 56." How do they get that way?

They's two books left, and in one of 'em is a note saying Judy has got to read this pair for her English Literature Class. I immediately join the Class. One book is called "The Saint's Tragedy," dashed off by a fellow named Charles Kingsley. The other is "The Last of the Barons," a much thicker book, by Edward Bulwer Lytton. I come near firing 'em out the window when I see Rags Dempster has wrote his name on the first page of both, right under Judy's!


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 "What thoughts do these books inspire you with?" is one of the questions Judy will be called upon to answer, according to the slip of paper in 'em. Well, I don't know what thoughts they inspired Judy with, but they is a wise crack in each of 'em which makes me do a piece of thinking, and that's a fact!

"Toil is the true knight's pastime!" claims Charles Kingsley, and "To have fame is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!" says Eddie Lytton. Well, if Charles is right, then every day I'm a knight, because I was toiling like a Chinese coolie behind Ajariah's soda fountain. As for Eddie's statement, I didn't know what it is to have fame, but he said a mouthful when he said to want it is a hell. Take it from me; I know! No dope fiend ever craved for a long-delayed pipe like I craved to be a success at something—anything! The only thing I really knew anything about was jerking soda, and I was eighteen. But I hadn't been plied with enough education to grab off a job with a future in it, or even a present, for that matter!

I had fame listed in my mind like I see the race horses listed on the programs at the County Fair at Drew City that summer: "Fame, aged, by Work, out of Ambition!" Well, I was going to lead the field under the wire on this imaginary horse, or croak trying.

I woke up at seven a. m. thinking about the heavy date I got with Knockout Kelly's manager at the Commercial House. Whilst I'm hopping around to keep warm under the coldest needle shower in Drew City, if not in the wide, wide world, I remember what Nate


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 Shapiro says to me after I have put Knockout Kelly on the floor: "You're all through mixin' banana punches and the like, kid—I'll get you more jack for your punches than you'll ever see here!"

I know that means he wants to make a prize fighter out of me, and then I think—why not? I have always made it the point to be healthy, and being born husky I've took the greatest of care to keep myself that way. When I been eating regular, like I had in Drew City for the past year, I stripped at 142, and if I walk under anything lower than five foot ten, why, I got to bend my head. Of course I had never done no fighting in a ring or much anywheres else either, but still I don't ever remember running home bawling because somebody picked on me. I've generally always been able to take care of myself since I've had to, and, to the best of my memory, that's been all my life.

The more I think of it whilst I'm getting dressed, the more I'm keen to say it with left hooks instead of with nut sundaes. It's a cinch I'll never set the lake ablaze whilst I'm buried in a small-town drug store, and the question which kept me awake at night when I was errand boy, newsboy, bobbing boy, and printer's boy is troubling me again. That question is, where do I go from here?

Then, again, boss boxers gets as much for mixing up two punches in a ring as I do for mixing up two million punches behind a fountain. I figure a dozen fights might give me enough jack to lay the foundation of a education and also pull a chair up to a dining-room table three times a day whilst I'm doing it. I


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 seen in the newspapers that Knockout Kelly, for the example, is to get five thousand dollars for boxing Jackie Frayne. And I knocked Kelly flat on his back with one punch! I think with a few more punches I can get a education, with a education I can get Judy Willcox, with Judy Willcox I can get anything!

At breakfast Mrs. Willcox asked me, land's sakes what am I thinking about, when I shake salt and pepper in my coffee and pour the cream on my fried eggs. Without hardly knowing what I'm saying, I tell her I'm thinking about Punch and Judy, which is true, but she stares at me so long I know my face is ted, so I beat it. By the time I have got the fountain all polished up and iced for the day, I have decided to take Nate Shapiro up.

He's named ten a. m. as the time he wants to see me, and it's a good hour after that when I left the Commercial House a different fellow than what I was when I went in there. When I go up to see Nate Shapiro I got matters all set in my mind that I'm going to make my living boxing. Where I come out, I don't know. To be a professional scrapper a fellow needs a whole lot more stuff than just the ability to punch somebody in the jaw and the willingness to accept a duplicate in return. You got to study this game like you study to be a first-class doctor, lawyer, plumber, or banker. But then if you get to the top in it, you can put the first-class doctor, lawyer, plumber, and banker on your pay roll and never miss the money!

"When will I have my first bout?" I asked Shapiro. "In a week or so, that is roughly?"


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 "Roughly is right!" grins the hard-faced Shapiro. "Roughly is the way I want you to act in your first fight—not bout. But toss you into a ring inside of a week? Be yourself! It'll take you a dozen weeks to learn the first rule of boxin'."

"What's the first rule?" I says.

"Always keep your shoulder blades off the canvas!" says Shapiro. "Don't laugh. Forgettin' 'at rule some day will beat Dempsey!"

"Well, how long before I would fight, then?" I says.

"About six months," says Shapiro—at's if you show some stuff!" He comes over to the bed where I have sit down, or rather sunk down, when I hear the "six months!" I'd figured that in six months I'd either be whipped out of boxing or the biggest thing in it. "Don't take it so hard," goes on Shapiro, patting my arm; "I could let you step next week with some tenth-rater, he'd paste you silly, break your heart, cure you of ever liftin' your hands again to even protect yourself and I'd lose a possible champ. Believe me, buddy, I ain't in this box-fight game for the laughs in it. I'm thinkin' of Nate Shapiro first, last, and all the time! It wouldn't hurt my nose if you got yours broke, but it would hurt my bank roll, and 'at's one place I can't take a punch! I know how all you kids feels when you've knocked somebody stiff for the first time. Take you, for instance—you think because you flattened K. O. Kelly with a lucky punch 'at you're the cat's whiskers, now don't you?"

"Well, I—eh—" I begin, the bit bashful.

"Sure!" butts in Shapiro. "Well, don't think too


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 much of that, get me? 'At showed me you could hit—'at's all. You want to remember K. O. had his hands down, and he thought you would hit him the same way he thought you was Lillian Gish! You took him by the completest of surprise. Put six-ounce gloves on the both of you, flip you into a ring right now, and K. O. Kelly would stop you in less than a round, without workin' up a sweat!

"Why, I don't know nothin' about you at all. How do I know you can fight with your pan cut to ribbons, your eye closed tight, or your nose broke? How do I know you'll get up and mix it after a knockdown? I don't even know your name. What do they call you, kid?"

"Gale Galen," I says, getting gloomier every minute.

At's a good one too," says Shapiro. "Easy to say, what I mean. I was afraid you might have a monniker which would baffle the announcers."

"Oh, I won't box under my right name!" I says quickly. "I"

"O. K.," Shapiro cuts me off. "If you do business, I'll pick you a good one, don't fret. Less see, you goaled Kelly with a punch, and I got a hunch we ought to build on 'at. They's 'One-Round' this and 'One-Punch' 'at—eh—how 'bout—I got it! We'll tag you 'Six-Second Smith'! 'At rolls off the tongue easy and it means somethin', Yes, sir, 'at 'Six-Second Smith' is goin' to make the boy in the other corner thoughtful, and don't think it won't!"

"It'll make me thoughtful too," I says. "That's some name to live up to! Now, what—er—wages will


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 I get for the six months I'm—eh—learning my trade?"

"I'll see 'at you eat," says this ten-minute egg. "But not at the Ritz! Another thing, and you might as well know this goin' in—you blow up on me in your first scuffle and you'll find yourself in 'Who's Through in America.' I'll drop you like a hot penny! Show me somethin', even 'at you can take it—and you got a million to shoot at!"

I get up after a few minutes and tell Shapiro I'll consider matters again and let him know. I want to see what two people thinks about it—Judy Willcox and Spence Brock.

Well, I ain't been back on the fountain a half hour when Spence comes in for a egg chocolate malted milk. I served him my troubles with the drink.

Much to my surprise, Spence don't go wild over the idea of me becoming a pug. Somehow, he says, it seems to him like a step down, not up, for me to pick out prize fighting as a life work.

"Not so good, Gale!" he says. "Not so good. And—Judy won't like that!"

"Look here, Spence," I says, "I've simply got to make some move which will get me from behind this soda fountain into something worth while! I happen to be big and strong, and that lets me out. What else can I do, outside of being a fighter, with the education I got? D'ye think I want to be a soda jerker all my life?"

"But why get excited over it now?" grins Spence. "You're only eighteen, so am I. We've got our whole life before us and lots of time to choose a career. I'm


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 not giving the future a thought until I leave college, and I'm not entering Princeton until next year. Why, we're going to play around a whole lot yet before"

"Where d'ye get that we stuff?" I butt in with a bitter laugh. Spence, with a millionaire father, classing himself with me! "Did it ever occur to you, Spence, that they's as much difference in our positions as they's miles between here and the moon? You should annoy yourself about the future, with the bank roll you got in back of you! Not that I begrudge you a nickel of it, Spence, you know that. But it's different here. I got to make my own future, and I got to make it now! I ain't going to Princeton next year, or any year; I'll have to take my view of college by hearsay. As for the playing around, fine—when I get somewhere. Right now, work, hustle, study what's going on around me—for that'll have to be my Princeton—till I find out what my particular trick is and then I'll go to it!"

"Atta boy!" says Spence, elias the counter. He's already changed to my way of thinking, like he usually does. "More power to you! Well, that's fine! The first time you box in New York I'll bring the whole gang over to root for you, and I'll be cheer leader!" Then he gets serious and leans over the counter. "Listen, Gale," he says. "If you're not going to box for six months yet, and this Shapiro will only furnish your board and lodging until then—er—well, of course, there's a lot of little things you'll want, and—er—say, I have almost a thousand dollars of my own and I can let you have it—now don't get so red in the face, this


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 would be strictly a loan and you can pay me back when"

"That's fine of you, Spence," I cut him off. "And I'll never forget it, don't think I will. But—I—I got some money from—from my grandfather in Kansas City the other day, and I'm sitting pretty as far as jack is concerned."

Spence gives me a odd look, but I don't flick a muscle.

"Oh, did you?" he says. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. But if you—er—if your grandfather ever refuses you, let me know. See you to-night!"

I don't get a nickel from my grandfather in Kansas City. Iain't got no grandfather. Both of 'em is dead, and I don't think either of 'em died and went to Kansas City. But I don't want to begin borrowing from Spence or nobody else. I don't want nothing gave to me; all I wanted was a chance to make it myself.

Spence has hardly went out when Lem Garfield, head and only clerk in The Elite Haberdashery, comes in for his daily dissipation. Lem's a incurable frosted-chocolate addict, and he admits I compose a wicked soda. I generally put everything in his drink but the day's receipts, and only charge him a thin dime, because, if they's one fellow I felt sorry for, it's Lem Garfield.

Lem was in the same boat I was—he's hungry for education too. The only difference between me and Lem was that disappointment had Lem licked. He'd quit trying. I'll quit trying when I'm dead!

Lem was born in Drew City and at twenty-three he's as gloomy and hard boiled as a guy of eighty. He's


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 sore at the wide, wide world, and I don't blame him, I'll tell you why. When the war was throwed open to all corners, Lem didn't wait to see if his number would win a free trip to Europe in the draft raffle; he throws up his job, hauls off, and enlists. Drew City got hysterical and give him a send-off which would of satisfied Babe Ruth.

As Lem himself says, the day he was born, the day he started for camp, and the day he stepped off the train coming back from the war was the three biggest days in his life! On the last two days mentioned Lem could of married any girl in Drew City, took any job, borrowed any amount of money, even robbed the First National Bank, and he'd of had everybody's good wishes. He was what is known as a "hero," and Drew City went double cuckoo over him. Especially when he come back from France, wounded and with a Croix de Guerre on his chest, pinned there by a big French general on the account Lem goes crazy and captures a German machin-gunmachine-gun [sic] nest all by himself.

That got in all the papers, put Drew City on the map, and Lem in the hospital. Now Lem was back of the gent's furnishing counter again, ignored and forgot. Even the kids don't pester him no more to see his medal or where he was wounded. Old Ajariah Stubbs says Lem ain't got no push in him. He had some push in him when he went through them Jerrys, didn't he?

"They ain't nothin' in bein' a hero!" says Lem bitterly, sipping his drink and opening up on his favorite subject. "What good did all them cheers do


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 me? I'd ruther been gave one good job with some kind of chances for advancement in it than a million of them 'Hurray for Lem Garfield's.' Ben Harkins, Joe Keen, Ollie Yerks, and them fellers got out of the draft on one excuse and another—Vince Neil, for example, on account he's got flat feet. As if that made a difference—we didn't have to dance with them Jerrys! But what I mean is this: all them fellers stayed home, tuk advantage of us boys bein' over there fightin' for 'em, and grabbed up all the good jobs. Ben Harkins was gettin' ten dollars a week in the bank when the draft tuk Matt Hamilton, the payin' teller. Ben managed to git himself married—hardly lived with her since—and got exemption. Now Ben's payin' teller and poor Matt's livin' in New York, workin' to-day and lookin' for work to-morrow. Matt got gassed. And that's the way it goes. A feller says anything about it, and they tell him: 'Forget it. The war's over!' As whosthis says, you'll find gratitude in the dictionary!"

"But they made a big fuss over you when you first come back, Lem, didn't they?" I says. I'll never ask Lem that no more. The next second I felt like I had struck a match back of the fountain and immediately seen Ajariah Stubbs's drug store go up in flames!

"Yeah!" snarled Lem, setting his glass down on the fountain with a click. "Yeah—they made a big fuss when I come back, over themselves! Mayor Gedge declares a holiday, Drew City is covered with flags and buntin', all the lodges, Eddie Granger's Vesper


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 Band, and the fire department parades, and the richest men in town was on the welcomin' committee. I never heard so many long-winded speeches in my hull life and everybody learns the entire words of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' for the fust time. They was two pages in the 'Sentinel' about me, and my pitcher and everything. Two weeks later they forgot I ever come back!"

"D'ye think they made all that fuss for my sake? Like fun! It give 'em a chance to be important for one day, and they snatched at it like the fust trout of the season after a fat fly. Them lifelong orators got a chance to orate and strut around wearin' 'Reception Committee' badges, high hats, and swollowtail coats, and that's why they done it! Is any of 'em interested in me now? No. Only to come around and ask me will I vote against the bonus and not ask my country to pay me for fightin' for it. Well, I don't want no bonus—I'm willin' to make my own way and aluss was. I'm agoin' to study law by mail. I've aluss had a hankerin' to be a lawyer, and Judge Tuckerman thinks I'd make a good one. If Drew City was really so all-fired proud of me, why didn't they give me a chance to make suthin' out of myself by fixin' so's I could go to law school?"

Well, I don't know about gratitude, but it did seem to me that Lem had a real kick coming. Maybe he has got a bent for law and would make a lawyer. They's no question but that he loves to argue, and I often heard old Ajariah snort that Lem's "wuss than a Philadelphia lawyer!" Ajariah meant that to be a


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 knock, but for all anybody knew, Lem would make good at it. But how was he going to find out?

Me and Lem was like two fellows without legs and both crazy to be runners. Artificial limbs would help us, but we ain't got the price, and there you are!

Lem argues that thousands of fellows in college is as out of place there as we'd be in Buckingham Palace. Fellows who's talents runs in entirely different directions from anything they're studying. Master plumbers wasting four years jamming their heads with French and Latin, useless to them and to be quickly forgot when they get out. Further authors getting their brains dulled by law, first-class authors studying medicine, boss salesmen grinding away at civil engineering. Whilst on the other hand, says Lem, fellows which would make cracker-jack lawyers, doctors, civil engineers, etc., is wasting their lives in gent's furnishing stores, plumbers' shops, soda fountains, offices, and like that. Why not limit college education to them which deserves it, instead of making it a rich man's way of getting his son off his hands for four years? They ain't half enough colleges now, claims Lem, to take care of the mobs which descends on 'em every year. State universities is snowed under by refugees from the high schools, and private colleges is swamped. So why not go through these millions and weed out for college only the ones which is actually going to benefit by it.

We're well warmed up to matters and Lem's addressing me like he really is a district attorney, and I'm a jury, when there is a interruption in the shape of Constabule Watson.


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 He marches right up to the fountain, glaring at me from under his bushy white eyebrows. I got a feeling that I am right on the brinks of having a lot of bad luck, because day before yesterday I liked to run over him with our delivery flivver.

Ajariah Stubbs comes out from behind the prescription counter to say hello to him and then stops short when Constabule Watson growls at me.

"Git off that air white coat and come over to the courthouse with me, you young hellion! I got a warrant fur your arrest fur reckless drivin'. Should be for aggravated assault and battery. You come near killin' me yistiddy!"

Ajariah opens his mouth like a fresh-caught bass and stares from me to Constabule Watson, like he thinks his ears is lying to him. But Lem, the coming lawyer, is all business.

"Let's see your warrant, constabule," he says, very important. "Don't yew say a word, Gale, till I get a chance to look into this!"

"Fust thing you know I'll 'rest you fur interferin' with a officer of the law," snorts Constabule Watson. "You keep your long nose out o' this, Lem Garfield, or it'll be the wuss fur you! Better git over to your shop. I see Nate Miller in there after a pair of overalls and no one to wait on him."

Lem beat it.

"Land o' Goshen!" says Ajariak. "What's all this to do about? What did you say this young scallywag done—steal suthin'?"

While Constabule Watson's telling old Ajariah the


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 details of my horrible crime, I slipped off my white coat and apron and put on my cap. We all go over to the courthouse together. Ajariah locked up the store and come with us, because a hearing in Judge Tuckerman's court is more fun than any circus you ever seen. More fun for everybody but the prisoners!

I guess everybody in the State of New Jersey has heard about old Judge Tuckerman, mostly because of what he does to auto tourists which speeds over the State road through Drew City—a road which would make a ballroom floor look bumpy and rough. There's about eighty-six speed traps along the two-mile straightaway, which is kept in repair by auto drivers from all over the country, Judge Tuckerman receiving the donations by the via of stiff fines and stiffer costs. He ain't so particular about the fines, the State gets that, but the costs has got to be paid because they go to him as wages.

Judge Tuckerman is old enough to of knew Adam personally, and he's got a way of looking at you over his glasses which makes you think that even if you didn't do whatever you're accused of, why, you probably would of done it if you'd had the chance. He won't let no lawyers plead in his court, because he says they's no lawyer living which knows half the law he does, and him being a judge proves it. Pleading not guilty is the same as contempt of court, on the account Judge Tuckerman claims you must be guilty or you wouldn't be dragged up before him. Once the judge grabs up his gavel, pounds on his desk and opens up court, why, all friendship ceases!


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 Well, they's about a dozen cases brought before Judge Tuckerman this day, running all the way from speeding to assault and battery. I don't think the judge wasted a half hour on the lot of 'em. Every one of the prisoners pleaded innocent, but that made no difference to Judge Tuckerman, which found 'em all guilty, sometimes before they got two and a half words out of their mouths, and slapped on the fines and costs with a lavish hand. I'm still laughing at these samples of Tuckerman justice when my case is called.

The judge frowns heavy at me when Constabule Watson got done telling him how I nearly run him down with our delivery flivver.

"Let's hear what ye got to say, young feller," says Judge Tuckerman, squinting at me over his cheaters. "And don't tell no more lies than ye have to! How d'ye plead?"

Well, I seen what the rest of 'em got by pleading innocent so I thought I'd save time. "Guilty!" I says promptly.

Instead of pleasing Judge Tuckerman, this honest confession seems to get him good and sore! He looks at me in a kind of pained surprise. I guess he thought I had deliberately spiked his guns, stopping him from giving me a good bawling out and then worming a confession out of me. He loves to do that, and I just kind of ruined his day for him by pleading guilty right off the bat.

"Well, I'll just make a example of ye for bein' so smart!" he growls. "Thutty-five dollars fine and fifteen


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310 wound, he let fall his shield and lifted higher in his hand his mighty sword (sharp enow it was); through both helmet and armor rings the hero smote Giselher. Thus each did other fiercely unto death.

Now was none left of Dietrich’s men. Old Hildebrand saw Wolfhart fall; never before his death, I ween, did such dole happen to him. The men of Gunther all lay dead, and those of Dietrich, too. Hildebrand hied him to where Wolfhart had fallen in the gore, and clasped in his arms the brave knight and good. He would fain bear him from the hall, but he was a deal too heavy, and so he must needs let him lie, Then the dying warrior looked upward from the blood in which he lay; well he saw, that his uncle would fain help him hence. Though wounded unto death, he spake: “Dear uncle mine, ye may not aid me now. ’Tis well, methinks, that ye should guard you against Hagen. A fierce mood he beareth in his heart. And if perchance my kinsmen would mourn me after I am dead, pray tell the nearest and the best, that they weep not for me; there is no need of that. At the hands of a king I have met a glorious death and have also avenged me, so that the wives of the good knights may well bewail it. If any ask you of this, ye may boldly say, that full a hundred lie slain by my hand alone.”

Then Hagen, too, bethought him of the gleeman, whom bold Hildebrand had robbed of life. To the knight he spake: “Ye’ll requite me now my sorrows. Through your hatred ye have bereft us of many a lusty knight.”

He dealt Hildebrand such a blow, that men heard


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 dollars costs. Maybe that'll take that grin off yer face!"

It did, for a fact! I ain't got fifty dollars any more than I got three ears. Fifty bucks is a month's wages—a pile of money! Old Ajariah is scowling at me something fierce, but still he's my only hope. So I took a deep breath and turned to him.

"Mr. Stubbs," I says, "can I—eh—I—will you loan me fifty dollars, please? You can take it out of my pay, as much as you want a week."

Old Ajariah gives me a indignant whinny and glares at me.

"I'll do no sich thing!" he grunts. "And ye ain't working fur me no more, ye young rip. I'm gettin' shut of you right now! Ask some of them rich friends o' yourn—them shameless young baggages from the school, with their short skirts and boys' haircuts, and them good-fur-nothin' cubs which hangs around my sody fountain. See if they'll help ye, now you're in trouble!" And he looks around the courtroom, grinning like a shaggy old wolf, which is what he reminds me of just then.

I felt like hollering at Ajariah right there in court that if it wasn't for the "shameless young baggages" and their boy friends from Drew City Prep coming in for sodas every day, he'd have to close up his drug store. But I got other things to think about right then. I got to get hold of fifty bucks or—then Judge Tuckerman bangs impatientty on the desk with his gavel.

"Can't pay the fine, hey?" he says. "The idea! A


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 strappin' young buck like you and you ain't got fifty dollars, eh? Wal—thutty days in the workhouse!"

Blam!

I feel like the courthouse has fell in on me. Thirty days in jail! Why, thirty minutes in a cell would drive me cuckoo! I been up against it good and plenty many times since I been a kid, but jail is one thing I've missed. It would about kill me, I'm satisfied of that! I stand there kind of dizzy till Constabule Watson grabs my arm and leads me over to Jeff Haines, Judge Tuckerman's clerk. Jeff's running a ink roller over a piece of paper, and he suddenly reaches out and snatches hold of my wrist. "Ever had your finger prints tuk?" he says, with a nasty grin.

Well, this here's too much. You'd think I was a burglar or something—take my finger prints! I jerked my wrist away so hard I pulled Jeff Haines half-ways over his desk, and the sticky ink gets all over his clothes and face, which tickles me silly. Constabule Watson reaches for me, when they's a commotion at the door of the courtroom and in rushes Nate Shapiro.

"Where's 'at kid from the drug store?" he bellows.

I waved my hand to him. Never again in my life will I be so glad to see Nate Shapiro, no matter what he does for me! Judge Tuckerman bangs with his gavel and splits a glare between me and Nate.

"Who d'ye think ye be, a-bustin' into my court like this?" howls the judge. "I fine ye twenty-five dollars for contempt of court, and if ye don't pay it I'll send ye to jail!"

Nate, which looks relieved when he sees me, just


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 sneers. He pulls a roll of bills from his pocket that no grayhound in the world could jump over, and he throws a few of 'em on the desk. "Shoot the piece, grandpa!" he says. "There's the twenty-five fish, and 'at's all you git if you cry your eyes out!" He turns to me: "You in a jam?" he asks quickly, paying no attention to the judge's red face.

In a low voice I told him, kind of hurriedly, what was what. Nate grunts and hands the raging Jeff Haines my fifty-dollar fine.

At's seventy-five bucks I'm in you," he says to me. "C'mon, git out of here before this old hick takes me for his winter expenses!"

Well, getting the air from Ajariah Stubbs, and Nate Shapiro coming to my rescue at the critical minute, just about decided me what to do. I walked back to the Commercial House with Nate, and before I left him I had signed a contract with him, fixed legal by Mr. Tompkins, the recorder of deeds and notary public. Nate agrees to room, board, and clothe me till the time I'm able to earn my first jack in the ring; after that I'm to give him fifty per cent of my wages. He promises he'll rush me along to the top, but he says I got to be satisfied with small purses at first. This kind of casts me down a bit. I ask him what he means by "small purses."

"Oh—a couple hundred bucks a fight," he says, carelessly.

Two hundred dollars a fight and Nate Shapiro calls that small! Why, I'd been working twelve hours a day for nearly four months for that much jack. And,


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 just think, if I fought every night I could make fourteen hundred dollars a week! I told Nate that, and he grabs my arm and swings me around. "Are you tryin' to kid somebody?" he snaps. I shook my head, and Nate gives me a long look. Then he laughs "Well, you don't know what it's all about, for a fact!" He says. "Fight every night, hey? How d'ye git 'at way? You work twice a month and stay perpendicular whilst you're in there, and I'll be tickled!"

I figure I'll tell Judy all about this after supper that night and see what she thinks about me becoming a boxer. Of course the thing's done now, but still and all a few words of encouragement from her would help me a lot. But once again I find luck's against me. Judy has went out canoeing on the lake with Rags Dempster.

A little later Spence Brock picks me up downtown in his new racing car, so I hop in beside him and tell him all the various adventures which has happened to me since he seen me that morning. Spence listens with the greatest of surprise and attention, and when I tell him about how old Ajariah Stubbs throwed me down, why, Spence swears they will never be another boy or girl from Drew City Prep go into his store, not even to use the phone. That cost Ajariah about $100 a week. While we're talking, Spence swings the car to the bridge over the lake, and half-ways across we get a blowout. I jump out to help Spence change the shoe, and happen to glance down at the water. Drifting along so's they'll pass right under us is Rags and Judy in Rags's canoe. The are lights along the bridge shows their faces up plain as day.


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 Spence hears me grind my teeth, and he pats my arm sympathetically, because he knows how I feel with the regards to Judy. The canoe's still drifting, when suddenly Rags gets up and starts towards Judy's end of it, feeling his way carefully so's not to upset it. Half rising, Judy calls to him to go back, and she sounds real scared. But Rags keeps coming on, laughing kind of nasty, and Spence whispers, almost to himself: "The big hound—not so good, Rags!"

Not so good? Say—my nails is biting into the wooden rail of the bridge, and I feel the blood trying to burst out of my temples. I'm glad I never felt that way in the ring. If I had, I'd of killed somebody! Without much idea of what I'm going to do, I throwed one leg up over the rail, and just then Rags makes a swift grab for Judy. She breaks away, and the canoe tips over, dumping 'em both in the lake.

Spence stands there petrified as the canoe rights itself and slowly floats away, but I reach the top of the rail in one bound as Judy comes coughing and spluttering to the surface. Then I jumped in after her. The last thing I remember is Spence's yell and Judy looking wild-eyed at me ashit the water a foot from her head. Not having saw me before, she must of thought I fell right out of the sky! Then I went down, down, down. They say the lake's fifteen feet deep under the bridge, but I don't believe it. I bet it's fifteen hundred! I took in about four gallons of muddy water and come up fighting for air. One look shows me Judy, Spence, and Rags swimming around the canoe like they've lived in water all their lives. Nobody in


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 no danger there. That's all I see, except Spence thrashing the water toward me when he spots my head. Then I went under again.

I couldn't swim a stroke. A swell rescuing hero, hey?

Spence, which has win cups in interscholastic swimming races, was the real hero. He had to rescue me! By some expert juggling we all managed to get in the canoe and to the bank of the lake, where we got out, all set-ups for pneumonia if it happened to come along. Spence runs to his car and gets the lap robe to wrap around Judy, and while he's gone Rags looks at me and sneers.

"What do you think you are—a movie hero?" he says tome. "Imagine going overboard to save a person's life and not even being able to swim!" He laughs long and loud.

None of that water has soaked through to my temper yet, and I'm just going to tie into him when Judy lays her wet hand on my equally wet arm.

"You—you can't swim at all, Gale?" she asks me, her eyes opening wide. Even bedraggled from the ducking in the lake, she looked like a million dollars.

"No, I can't, Judy," I says, getting good and red. "But I didn't think of that when I jumped in. I was thinking of—Oh, what's the use, I just made a fool of myself. Let's forget it!"

"I'll never forget it, Gale!" she says kind of soft, and her hand's still on my arm. "I think that was wonderful. Wonderful! That was real courage—Oh,


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 if you had been drowned! You knew you couldn't swim and that the lake was deep, and yet"

This is steaming Rags up. He takes out a wallet and removes a bill, stepping over to us.

"Here, boy," he says, offering me the bill, "get yourself some dry clothes and—eh—run along now. If there's any change, you might—eh—buy yourself some swimming lessons!"

I knocked the bill out of his hand and he would of surely followed it to the ground if Judy hadn't pushed quickly in between us. She gives Rags as two-handed a bawling out as I ever heard in my life, and when she got through, Rags looked like a whipped stray dog.

Spence come along at the tail end of the thing, and his eyes twinkled as Judy wound up by turning her back on Rags and taking my arm to Spence's car. After changing the punctured shoe Spence drove Judy and: me home, and she insisted on spreading half the fap robe over me. We held hands under it like a couple of kids all the ways to the house, and if you could ever see Judy you would know that a little thing like being ducked in a lake is nothing compared to that!

Well, Mrs. Willcox is scared stiff when she sees us come in looking like a couple of drownded rats, but Judy laughs things off and runs up to change her clothes while I go to my room and do likewise. I'm just about dressed when Judy knocks on my door and says to come right down to the parlor when I'm ready, because her mother is making us both something hot to keep off a cold. So I go downstairs, and there's some hot lemonade and Judy's dissolving rock candy


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 in it. She's got some kind of a Japanese kimona on and she's just a magazine cover come to life.

It nearly drives me crazy when I think I've got to leave Drew City for a while, and maybe Rags Dempster with all his money will get her, before I've had a chance to make good. When Mrs. Willcox comes in I tell 'em both all about what happened to me during the course of the day and that I'm going away with Nate Shapiro to be a boxer, because I want to make enough money to educate myself and get somewhere. Then I'm coming back to Drew City

I stopped there, looking hard at Judy, and she knows what I mean, for she gets a beautiful red which don't escape her mother, who looks from me to Judy a bit sharp, but says nothing.

The three of us talks things over for quite the while. Judy don't seem to be a bit against me being a boxer, but she also thinks I might go just as far without a college education.

"You know, Gale, that Ingersoll said college was a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed!" she says. "And I—I don't like your going away one bit! That is, I—I mean—" She breaks off, blushing again, and Mrs. Willcox butts in to say she thinks I'm all wrong to leave Drew City to go out in the world and try to get famous. I'm too poor to be proud, she says, and on top of that, pride is sinful.

Then she tells me what the Bible says about it. She thinks I should stay in Drew City and take up some good trade like drug clerk, steam fitter, garage mechanic, or the like which, she says, "will pay you


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 your good twenty-five to thirty dollars a week some day!"

It also slips out, while Judy fidgets and coughs, that Mrs. Willcox's a hundred dollars shy on a note held by the bank and due in a week. How she's going to get the century is something she don't know. This bothers me not the little, and I am thinking is there any way I could scare up that hundred bucks short of burglary and get it to that dear old lady without her knowing who sent it, when the doorbell rings. Judy seems glad of the interruption to her mother's hard-luck story and runs to the door.

Mrs. Willcox peeps out the window through the curtains.

"Why, it's Mr. Dempster!" she says in a pleased voice.

I liked to fall out of my chair! What is this fathead doing around here after what just happened at the lake? And "Mister" Dempster! This big stiff's only about my age—but he's "Mister" and I'm just Gale. Still, if money gets a fellow attention in Wall Street, why shouldn't it in Drew City?

Judy walks in ahead of Rags without saying a word. She looks meaningly at me and then back to Rags, very stern and cold.

"Well?" she says to him, eighty below zero.

But with Mrs. Willcox, it's different! She runs and grabs Rags's hat and coat and pushes a worn chair back of the curtains on the sly, and generally acts as flustered as if Rags was the Prince from Wales. This gets Judy's goat and ruins my animal, especially when


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 Rags acts as if this was only what was due him.

"I—ah—I wish to apologize for my conduct at the lake, Judy," he says. "And I'm sorry for—ah—what I said to you, Galen. Your going into the water under the circumstances was very—ah—courageous, even if you were unable to be of the slightest assistance, and, in fact, had to be rescued yourself."

He had to tag that on at the end with a faint, nasty smile, to make it look to Mrs. Willcox like I'd kind of bungled things all up. But Judy looks agreeably surprised and kind of winks at me from behind him to take his outstretched hand, I didn't want to—I know this fellow is simply stalling—but I shook hands.

Then Rags sprang his real surprise. He offers me a job in his old man's carpet factory, and he does it in a silky, politely insulting manner which would of made a starving beggar turn the offer down if he had breath left to refuse! Looking past me, like I'm a horse, or the like, he's talking about, he tells Mrs. Willcox I'll have a opportunity to learn a good trade in the carpet mill and not be a "unskilled laborer" like I am now. He thinks he might get me ten or twelve a week to start. Not in the office—oh, no! I haven't got enough schooling for that, and then they have to be—ah—particular—but in the mill.

The high and mighty tone of his voice gets me red-headed! I can read faces better than Judy or her mother—I've saw more, for one thing—and I know Rags is simply doing all this to devil me. He knows darn well I wouldn't be obligated to him for as much as the correct time, but he's making plenty display be-


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 fore Judy and her mother. He goes over very big with Mrs. Willcox, for she immediately tells me I'm getting the chance of a lifetime and I'll be crazy not to take it.

Even Judy seems to think that way too, telling me—in one quick whisper which sent my heart pumping like a hydraulic drill—that she don't want me to go away. But I licked that temptation before it got its hands up. I wasn't going to be buried in no Drew City carpet factory before I'd had a chance to see for myself am I a false alarm or do I mean something! So I thanked Rags as polite as I could, but I says I got something better in view. Then I says good night all around and went up to my room.

The next morning, after I pack, I went down to the Commercial House, and for one solid hour me and Nate Shapiro argued each other black in the face. Only by flatly refusing to leave Drew City with him do I finally get what I'm after. I got a hundred bucks from him and mailed it to Mrs. Willcox in a plain envelope, with nothing to show who it come from. So that was that.

Well, Drew City's only thirty-eight miles from New York, and I figured I can maybe run down for Sundays. I promised to write Spence every few days and let him know how they're breaking for me, and then I go back to the house for the big farewell to Judy and her mother. Now that Mrs. Willcox seen I was determined to go, why, she cried a little bit and actually kissed me on the forehead, saying she had come to look on me like a son. And even though she thought I was making a big mistake, she hoped I had all kinds