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 flies. You go chasing one of those beauties, and the first thing you know he has you in the brush, and then you get into some briars, and after a while you come out and look at yourself and you wonder whether you dressed yourself that morning or whether that was all the trousers you had on when you started out. Many a time I've felt like taking a handkerchief out of my pocket, and waving it at a butterfly, and telling him that I'd sign a peace treaty if he'd only show me how to get out of there."

At least, Bert admitted grudgingly, this Butterfly Man did not talk through his nose. The auditorium was laughing; it had been won; but Bert refused to unbend. He began to whisper to Dolf.

"Shut up," Dolf said shortly. "I want to hear this."

Bert retired into himself and refused to pay attention to the address. Presently the lights snapped out, a moving picture machine began to grind with a soft whirr, and a butterfly, fluttering gorgeous wings, appeared upon the screen. This, at least, was interesting, and for fifteen minutes Bert watched pictures of the insects come and go. Then the lights were on again, the pictures were done, and the talk was ended. At that moment Bert began to suspect that he had cheated himself out of something good—but it was too late. His mother would have understood. She

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 had a shrewd knowledge of his mulish moments.

Spring came on the heels of the Butterfly Man's visit, and spring brought baseball. Bert turned out for the nine, and, in what time was at his disposal, practiced faithfully. Weight did not count for so much in baseball, and he thought that he might have a chance. But after a few weeks he saw that he would not make it. Day by day he got less and less of the work—more valuable material claimed the coach's attention—and at last the time came when he was not called forth at all.

It was then that class teams were organized, and he was assigned to play second base for the freshmen. This was his moment of glory, and he depended on his bicycle to make sure that the moment did not fade. Each day he brought the wheel to the school and left it at the rear of the building. As soon as classes were over for the day he made haste to reach the store, and the orders awaiting delivery were peddled madly about the town. His one thought was to finish and get back to the athletic field.

Luck was with him. Four times his team took the field to win or lose, and four times he was there to start the game. At the end of those four contests, the freshmen and the juniors were tied for first place, each team having won three games and lost one.

"And next week we play the juniors," Dolf said.

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 "You certainly won't catch me missing that game."

Bert did not wish to miss it, either. The fate of the freshmen nine loomed in his imagination as of more importance than the success or failure of the school team. For to the school team he was a nobody, not even an unlikely substitute; while to the freshman nine he was a vital, necessary and stimulating cog. There was talk in the school that the game might settle the Class League Championship. Bert began to dream of a secondbaseman who forever stood over his bag and tagged out daring runners.

His constant hope was that, when the game came, he would find the afternoon free. But the luck that had sponsored him all season deserted him that day. A crowd was gathering on the athletic field even as classes were dismissed. He raced from the school to the store. There were no packages waiting on the far end of the counter. His heart grew light.

"Anything for me?" he called. It was merely a perfunctory question, a part of each afternoon's procedure.

"That you, Bert?" Mr. Quinby came from behind a partition at the rear of the store. "There's a suit of clothes to go to Mrs. Busher's. You know the place, on Fairmount Avenue."

Bert's face fell. Fairmount Avenue was some distance from the field. "Couldn't I deliver it before supper? We have a game to-day. . . ."

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 "He wants to wear it to-night; they're going into the city on the five-fifty train. Mrs. Busher telephoned that she'd wait in until you brought it."

Well, if he had to deliver it, the quicker the better. "Which one?" he asked. He was impatient to be gone.

"The tailor at the corner has it. Coat had to be pressed and the trousers shortened. He won't hold you up. He promised it for three o'clock."

Bert rode to the corner, left his wheel propped by one pedal against the curbstone, and bolted into the shop.

"You got a suit here for Mr. Quinby," he announced.

The tailor, working in his shirt sleeves, with a tape measure end falling over each shoulder, had a mild eye and an unhurried manner. "Working on it now," he said. "You're not in a hurry, are you?"

Bert groaned. A clock, ticking noisily on the wall, said twenty minutes past three. The game was to start at half-past. Of course, there was usually some delay. . ..

"I'm in a terrible hurry," he said. "Got to get back to the school. Rush it, won't you?"

"Sure, sure. Why didn't somebody say this was a rush job?"

"It was marked for three o'clock."

"It isn't much after three. Don't crowd me

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 now; it makes me nervous. I'll rush it, but don't crowd me."

Yet, for all the tailor's protestations of speed, his motions were leisurely, for he was a2 man not given to the excitement of haste. The hands of the clock crept around—twenty-five after, half-past, twenty-five minutes of four.

"There," said the tailor, "that's done, and no thanks to your fidgeting. Now to wrap paper around it and tie it. . . . Hey! It isn't tied. You'll be losing the vest or something and. . . ."

But Bert was gone. One instant of getting set in the saddle, and then he was off, dodging recklessly through the traffic of Washington Avenue. Twice he turned corners at a pace that held the bicycle at a perilous angle. Arrived at his Fairmount Avenue destination he did not bother this time to prop the wheel against the curb, but let it fall as he stepped from it. He ran up the walk to the house, and pressed hard on the button of the electric bell.

No answer. Time was flying. He rang the bell again, and then hastened to the rear of the house. There was no bell here, so he rapped with his knuckles against the glass of a kitchen window.

"Boy! Boy!"

He located the call. It came from a woman leaning out an upstairs window of a house two doors above.

"Are you looking for Mrs. Busher?"

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 "Yes'm."

"I saw her go out about half an hour ago."

So this time that he had had to give had been wasted, after all. A tide of anger rose in him and the hot fever of it dried and choked his throat. He righted the bicycle, kicked a toe-clip into place, and rode back to the store. A clock in a jeweler's window told him that it was five minutes past four. His father was out on the sidewalk scanning: the street.

"You'll have to go back," he said. "Mrs. Busher just 'phoned. She said she had stepped out for a moment."

Bert looked straight ahead with a hard stare.

"Can't be helped," his father said. "I'm sorry; it's one of the things that thoughtless persons inflict upon business men. Hurry and you may be in time for your game. You needn't come back here. Go right to the field."

So the boy rode again to Fairmount Avenue. He rang the bell, and then rang again, holding his finger on the button. Footsteps sounded within the house. Even his inexperienced ears, reading the sound, could tell that it indicated outraged dignity. The door was thrown open and he was confronted by Mrs. Busher.

"Must you tear down my house," she demanded, "because I do not drop everything and run when you ring? What do you mean by such conduct?"

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 "I was here before and nobody answered," he said darkly.

"Oh, you were?" Her tone was sarcastic. "And must I ask every tradesman's boy whether I can step out of my own house? If I were not a friend of your mother's I would march that suit right back. How dare you be impertinent? Your father will hear of this. Mark me!"

Bert gave not the slightest thought to her threat as he rode out of Fairmount Avenue. When he reached the field the fifth inning was on, the juniors led, 8 runs to 5, and another boy was playing in his place. He found Dolf and Bill Harrison together and sat down beside them. He was full of his grievance and explained the run of circumstances that had barred him from the game.

"Mrs. Busher!" said Bill, and shook his head. "She deals at our store. She's a Tartar."

Bert sat and watched the progress of the game. The juniors continued to score, and the contest lost interest. A magazine stuck out of Dolf's pocket, and he reached for it. The magazine was devoted to business, and in one column he found a short article that caught his wandering attention:

The Star Dry Goods Company hung an open umbrella in a show window, played water over it from a stationary hose, and demonstrated the

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 rain-shedding qualities of the article. Umbrella sales showed a 200 per cent increase that week.

The game ended, the victorious juniors cheered the crestfallen freshmen, and the crowd broke up. Bert gave the magazine back to Dolf. A picture of the umbrella, hanging with the water cascading from it, lingered in his imagination. It had the thrilling qualities of a stunt, and he wondered how the spectacle would look in his father's window.

"What's the matter?" Bill Harrison asked. "You don't look so much like a sour pickle now."

"Oh, what difference does it make if I missed the game?" Bert answered. It was one of the sudden transformations of mood that happen to boys. Umbrella and hose! And maybe twenty-five pounds of sugar under the umbrella to show that no water was coming through. He was sure that that would make people stop and stare. It had the appeal of a circus.

He was upstairs, washing, when his father came home for the evening meal. A word reached his ears, and he paused with his face half-dried. That word had been "Busher."

"Sure," he muttered. "She can make me go back twice, but it's a crime if I ring her bell so she'll hurry." He snapped the towel back on its rack and came downstairs with smoldering eyes.

"What happened at Mrs. Busher's to-day?" his father asked with ominous quietness.

"She gave me fits."

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 "For pounding at her bell?"

"I didn't pound. I just rang it so she'd hurry."

"She says you were impertinent."

"I wasn't." Bert's denial was made indignantly. "She lit into me and I said she wasn't there when I came before. Maybe she wouldn't be there the second time. How was I to know? Anyway, she's always grouching about something. . . ."

"That will do," his father cried. "Don't you know, haven't you learned, that a business man must please his customers? He's got to give service; if he doesn't give it somebody else does. Mrs. Busher told me she was of a mind to take her trade elsewhere. Do you imagine that customers are so easy to get that I can afford to throw away the ones I have? I've been watching you, Bert. I don't like the way you come to the store and sulk if there's anything for you to do. How do I know how many people you've treated as you've treated Mrs. Busher to-day? I see now that there's only one thing for me to do. I'll put an ad in the paper to-morrow and advertise for a clerk. I suppose I'll have to pay him fifteen a week, but that shouldn't worry you . . . and it probably will not. You'll have your afternoons free for your games."

Part of the climax of that speech startled Bert. He said the most unfortunate thing he could have said.

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 "Fifteen dollars a week! Why, I got only two dollars."

"Must I pay my own son dollar for dollar to help me as though he were a stranger?" Mr. Quinby asked bitterly.

Supper that night was something of a strained meal, with Mrs. Quinby trying to maintain a flow of conversation and Bert silent in his chair. The boy had not meant to imply that he should have been paid more, but that fifteen dollars was too much for a clerk. Ordinarily, if he were misjudged, he sulked into injured dignity; but the thought of the fifteen dollars appalled him and urged him to make clear his position. Twice he prepared to speak, but each time a look at his father's face stopped him. His father was in no mood for explanations.

"Mother," he said that night when they were alone, "I didn't mean it that way." He felt confidence in speaking to her.

"Why didn't you say so?" she asked.

He looked down at the floor and made no answer.

"Your father has worries, Bert, that you know nothing of," she said gently. "He'll realize when he thinks it over that you didn't mean it that way."

The boy was comforted. Later, working in his room on his studies, he suddenly sat bolt upright. The umbrellas! If he told his father about that idea wouldn't it show that his thoughts had not

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 been as selfish as his father had believed? He pictured his triumphant telling of the plan, visioned his father's face alight with interest, and forgot his books entirely in his happy anticipation of the climax.

He did not speak of the subject until morning. After breakfast he followed his father out into the hall.

"I read something in a magazine about a dandy way to sell umbrellas," he began eagerly. "You hang an umbrella in the window, and have water from a hose pouring over it. And you can put sugar under the umbrella to show how dry the umbrella keeps things, and. . . ."

"Becoming suddenly interested in the business, aren't you?" Mr. Quinby broke in.

"Why . . . why. . . ." Bert had not expected such a question. His mind, set on the tale he had to tell, could not shift with adroitness to explanation.

"Humph! Beginning to worry about the two dollars you'll miss each Saturday," his father said and took his hat and went out. He was a man disappointed in his son, and his disappointment had blinded him. He did not understand.

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HE new clerk's name was Samuel Sickles. Saturday week the five-forty train from the city dropped him off at the Springham station—a neat, well-brushed, alert young man of nineteen who was labeled "strictly business." He came to the store, introduced himself to Mr. Quinby, and set out forthwith to find lodgings. By nine o'clock he had engaged room and board with a family living not far from Washington Avenue, and had left a notice at the station to have his trunk delivered. That much accomplished, he came back to the store and immediately began to look over the shelves and locate the stock.

Mr. Quinby surveyed him with something of curiosity. "Sickles," he said at length, "how did you learn that I was in need of a clerk?"

"I wrote to several wholesale houses and asked if they knew of a small, growing store in a small, growing town that might be able to use my services."

"Humph! I had an idea that you hadn't seen my ad in the Springham paper. Ordinarily the small town boy goes to the city. You left the city

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 to come to a small town. How much were they paying you there?"

"Twenty dollars."

"And you came here for fifteen dollars. Why?"

"I can live as well here on fifteen dollars as I could in the city on twenty. I figured that this would be a better place for advancement. In the city a clerk is a small potato. In the small town he can be a real person and grow with the town. What time do we open in the morning?"

"Quarter to eight."

"Would you mind giving me a key? I'll be around about seven o'clock. If you want to get ahead you've got to get an early start. I can have everything cleaned up for the day by opening time."

Mr. Quinby gave him a key to the front door. Monday morning he swept the floor, dusted the show cases, and swept the sidewalk. When Mr. Quinby arrived he was standing with alert attention behind the counter, business from the top of his carefully brushed hair to the soles of his feet.

"Were you in the habit of sweeping the sidewalk where you worked in the city?" Mr. Quinby asked.

"No, sir." Sam seemed surprised at the question. "But I read Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. He tells how he was not above wheeling his supplies through the street and so got a reputa-

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 tion for industry. If people see us sweeping the sidewalk every morning they'll think our store must be pretty clean inside if it's so clean outside. That's good advertising."

"Who told you it was good advertising?"

"I've been reading some advertising books."

Mr. Quinby looked the clerk over with an astounded gaze. He had never before met anybody just like him. The lad had a viewpoint beyond his years. He was like some young ow! that had grown abnormally grave and prematurely wise.

He had, it developed, made one sale that morning. A man who had left home without a handkerchief had stopped to purchase one, and had departed with two.

"I sold him," Sam explained to Mr. Quinby, "on the theory that if he forgets a handkerchief one morning he'll forget one another. So I sold him one to carry to-day, and one to leave in his desk for the next time he forgot. And while I was sweeping the sidewalk a fat man from across the street came over to talk to me. He seemed to be very curious about how I came to hold this situation. He didn't get much information out of me. People who tell all they know don't get very far in the world."

"That was Old Man Clud," Mr. Quinby said.

"What's his business?"

"He's a money lender."

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 Sam's tones when he answered were decisive. "He and I won't do any business. I neither lend nor borrow." When his luncheon hour came he retired to the rear of the store with a box of crackers and a bottle of milk and brought out a book. Its title was The Secrets of Business Success.

That night, at the supper table, Mr. Quinby extolled the new clerk. He was impressed with Sam's good qualities. The fifteen dollars a week no longer worried him, for he was convinced that the remarkable young man would be worth the money. And as he ceased to fret about the fifteen dollars his feelings toward his son underwent a sudden change.

"To-day I sent Sam to deliver two shirts. What do you think he did? Took along several ties and convinced the man's wife that her husband ought to wear ties that harmonized with the shirts. Gave her a neat talk on style. Sold her two. He has the best business head I've seen on a young fellow in a long time. You ought to make it a point, Bert, to get acquainted with him."

Bert made no promises. He resented the praise, probably because his own work had never been highly regarded. His imagination pictured Sam Sickles as a smirking, fawning figure with the art of draping itself ingratiatingly over a counter.

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 tails of the newcomer to Bill Harrison and to Dolf.

"I'd keep away from him, too," Dolf agreed. "He must be a pill. My father wouldn't have a clerk like that in the bakery for five minutes."

"I don't know about that," Bill drawled. "I never heard of anybody getting fired for showing up early in the morning. Usually it's the other way around. Anyway, Dolf, your father's put up with you around, and you're no lily. You left us the wrong cake the last two Saturdays."

"Ah, you're always knocking," Dolf said resentfully. "I wouldn't go near him, Bert."

Bert didn't. The days passed in a luxury of freedom. He weathered the storm of freshman examinations and after that there were no tasks to claim his time. The hours were his. The tray had again been taken from his bicycle, and he pedaled where he would, sometimes alone, sometimes with Dolf, and sometimes with both Dolf and Bill. For Bill had learned to propel his bicycle with one leg and to carry his crutch laid across the handle bar. Now and then they brought packages of food with them and built a fire along the roadside and cooked their noonday meal, and watched Bill try to draw every insect that crossed his path. This, Bert announced, was better than working in any store.

"You bet," said Dolf, and stuffed his mouth with cake.

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 Bill worked the tip of his crutch into the ground. "Well," he said, "this is all right just for now, but I wouldn't want to do it as a steady thing. It would get mighty tiresome."

"What would you want to do?" Dolf asked suspiciously.

"I'd want a job. You get tired of loafing. I found that out in the hospital."

However, for the present, Bert was well-content to drink his fill from the cup of leisure. There came a day when, with the tide of adventure running strongly in his veins, he set out for the big city. It was twenty miles there, twenty miles back, but the distance did not awe him. The whole day stretched ahead. He left Springham behind and rode the wide sweep of the county highway. A summer breeze murmured past his ears; the miles came and went on his speedometer. Once he halted to rest, and then was a-wheel and on again. It seemed a pity to linger when he could be in motion.

Twelve miles out he came to a crossroads that he had never noticed before. The same itch for adventure that had urged him forth, now painted this new road with alluring possibilities. He forgot his original intention and turned into it. Travel had packed down the dirt and the going was not bad.

"If it gets bumpy," he told himself philosophically, "I can turn back and no harm done."

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 The road came up to the full measure of his hopes and expectations. Trees stretched out their branches to form a green dome and through this dome the sunlight fell in flickering splashes. Sumac, wild berries and sweet ferns grew along the sides. For the first mile he chanced upon no other wayfarer, and the hands that gripped the handle bars relaxed their pressure. A great and drowsy contentment settled over his mind.

From this he awoke with startled suddenness as something crashed violently through the roadside hedge. The wheel swerved as his startled senses sought to readjust themselves. One moment he had a vision of a something, large and grotesque, crossing his path; the next he was into it, and his wheel was shocked from under him, and he was tumbling in the road.

The fall did not hurt him and, as he righted himself, he saw a man sitting squat in a cloud of dust and ruefully surveying a butterfly that was leisurely disappearing behind a spread of quivering aspen branches.

"Missed him," the man said with a sigh.

Bert was indignant. "Well, you didn't miss me."

The man forgot the butterfly and stared at the boy. They made a ludicrous pair, sitting there in the road, the one dignified and grave, the other flushed and resentful. The man began to chuckle in a deep bass voice.

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 "Come to think of it, I didn't miss you, did I? Hurt? And by the way, you didn't miss me. We certainly made a mess of each other, didn't we? Wait until I find my glasses and I'll have a look at you."

The glasses were lying in the dust. He rescued them, polished the lens, and placed them on his nose. And then Bert knew him.

"You're the Butterfly Man," he said impulsively. "You gave a talk at our school."

"Did I? I've spouted my piece at a lot of schools. Which one is yours?"

"Springham High."

"Oh, yes. I did talk there. Is that why you ran into me and knocked me down?"

"You ran into me," Bert defended.

The man's face wreathed in a large, friendly smile. "Now, don't be shying away from your honors. Considering that I'm not the stoutest person in the world it ought to be quite a feat to hit me. However, let's see what's happened to your bicycle."

They found the wheel lying at the foot of a tree. One handlebar was bent far out of its original shape. Tom Woods surveyed the bar appreciatively.

"That," he said, "is what I call a successful wreck. If you tried it again you couldn't mash things up so well. Got a tool kit with you?"

"No, sir."

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 "Too bad. I feel that I ought to make amends for not having blown my horn when I came out. If you care to walk over to my place I'll see if I can make this worse than it is. It's only about half a mile. Come along. If you refuse I'll think you're still sore about that high school speech."

Bert found himself being won over completely by this likable man with the queer way of expressing himself. He felt the need of denying antagonism.

"The pictures were good," he said.

"That means the lecture was not. Well, I've suspected it for a long time. However, we've got to get this wheel fixed. I'll push it. I'm taller than you, and if it starts to get wobbly I can fall on it and fight it into submission. You never knew that a bicycle is a terrible weapon, did you? Neither did I until you assaulted me with this one."

By this time Bert had awakened to the fact that much of what the Butterfly Man said was whimsical fun. He followed him down the road until they reached a trail that ran to the right. Into this Tom Woods went, and when the trail grew rutted he stuck his shoulder through the frame of the bicycle, lifted it from the ground, and carried it. All at once the path widened, and in a cleared space Bert saw a sight that drew an involuntary cry of admiration from his lips.

"I thought that would get you," Tom Woods

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 said, and in his voice was that which shows a man proud of his work.

Bert saw before him a cozy cabin built compactly of logs, and joined to it a florist's house of glass. But it was not alone the flowers and the shrubs under that glass that had drawn the cry from him. The glass house seemed full of butterflies, thousands of them, fluttering on graceful, gaudy, iridescent wings, a fairyland of rainbow colors in motion.

The Butterfly Man threw open the door of the cabin, and they entered. A massive stone fireplace was at one end, bookshelves stretched along a wall, and wide, roomy chairs, thrown around in a sort of orderly confusion, invited rest and serene contemplation. A center table was littered with pipes, papers, matches and ashes. Between two windows stood a small work bench, and around this stood case after case of mounted insects, their wings spread, looking for all the world as though they would come to life in a moment, break away from the pins that held them, and waft themselves about the room.

Bert wanted to linger at those cases. But Tom Woods took a handful of wrenches from the work bench, came outdoors again, and sat on the doorstep with his back against the sill. He seemed to know exactly what to do as he began to bend the handlebar back into shape. The angle was a difficult one, and half a dozen times one of the

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 wrenches slipped. The man went on unruffled with the work.

"You don't get mad when it goes wrong, do you?" Bert asked.

The Butterfly Man shook his head. "What's the use? I've seen men curse and rant when a wrench continued to slip. There's no use in cursing at your tools. They'll do what you want them to do if you handle them correctly. You're not given to cursing, are you?"

Bert flushed. "No, sir."

"Right. Man's the only living thing in the world that does. Stupid, isn't it? Ah, now we're getting it. Another minute, sonny, and we'll have this thing right. By the way, I haven't heard your name."

"Bert Quinby."

"All right, Bert, there's your engine of destruction. Where you bound for now?"

Bert didn't know. The turn of the day's adventure had routed lesser considerations.

"Is that your lunch in that package? Some jelly sandwiches? I like homemade jelly sandwiches. Suppose you stay and eat with me. You put in your sandwiches, and I'll make coffee, broil some ham and open a can of beans. Fair enough. Now, while I'm cooking, suppose you run in to my butterfly farm and look it over. Careful of the doors. We've got to keep the beauties in their place. I like them, but not in my food."

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 And so Bert passed into the house of glass. It had been breath-taking as seen from the outside; it was glorious within. It seemed to him that every known butterfly in the world must be there. He was filled with a fear of hurting them, and stood motionless and feasted his eyes. Never for a moment did the movement of wings in some part of the glass house cease. The languor of their flight, the grace of their motion, the silent mystery of their flutterings from flower to flower, fascinated him and held him spellbound. Nor did he move until Tom Woods called to him from the cabin.

He found a table set for two, and the aromatic smell of coffee in the air. But it was of the butterflies the man spoke.

"Like 'em?"

"They're great," Bert said, at a loss for other words. "Do you know all about them—their names and what they like to eat—and all that?"

"I have to; it's my business." And then at the wonder reflected in the boy's face: "Every person ought to be master of something. It's his excuse for living."

They took places at the table, and the man began to serve the meal.

"You live alone, don't you?" Bert asked.

"Yes; I do," Tom Woods answered ruefully. "Isn't a man a fool to live alone?" He poured the coffee and smiled. "But I like it, and I'm never

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 really alone when I have my pets out there. I find them good company."

They sat long at the table, for when the meal was done the Butterfly Man lighted his pipe, and leaned back in his chair, and spoke of strange things. A clock on the fireplace mantel eventually told Bert that it was time to start for home. Tom Woods walked with him as far as the road.

"Now that you've found me," he said, "come often, but don't try to kill me."

"I have a couple of friends who'd like to see this," Bert said with a question in his voice.

The man scratched his ear. "Sometimes I'm out of flour, and sometimes it's sugar, and sometimes it's coffee. I'm a bad housekeeper. I feed my butterflies better than I feed myself. How about these chaps—do they like ham and beans?"

"One of them is Dolf Muller. He's always hungry. He'll eat anything."

"Well, that simplifies things. I always manage to have ham and beans. Who's the other chap?"

"Bill Harrison. He's got only one leg."

The man's voice changed. "Handicapped before he's really started. Bring 'em around. If I'm not at home camp on the doorstep until I get back. It's a good doorstep for loafing. I've tried it."

Bert rode back to Springham the bearer of momentous tidings. Suddenly in a world of commonplace events he had found an oasis of enchant-

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 ment dominated by a man whose quizzical utterances piqued his interest and flamed his curiosity. Supper was already under way when he reached home. His mother asked him anxiously where he had been, and his father reproved him sharply for his tardiness. He slid into his seat, and busied himself with knife and fork, and within the hour was out of the house again to hunt up Dolf and Bill.

He found them and related a breathless story of the day's events. Their reactions were characteristic.

"I hope he gives us something good to eat the day we go there," said Dolf.

Bill Harrison's smile was a bit dreamy. "I'd like to meet that Butterfly Man," he said.

Five days later they rode slowly out of Springham, their rate of progress stayed by the necessity of holding back for Bill. The morning was hot and sultry, and after five miles Dolf began to grumble and to ask if they were ever going to get there.

"Perhaps," Bill said, "if Dolf speaks about it the Butterfly Man will move his place nearer town. It's a darn shame to ask Dolf to work himself into a sweat."

"Ah, shut up!" Dolf growled; but thereafter he rode without complaint.

They came at last to the dirt road, and turned in. Soon they were at the trail. The three dis-

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 mounted and Bert saw that Bill's leg, as he stood beside his wheel, trembled with weariness.

"Where is this place?" Dolf asked impatiently.

"Another two minutes," Bert said, and took Bill's bicycle. "I can push both yours and mine." Bill flashed him a smile, stuck the crutch under his arm, and hobbled along the trail.

And so they came out into the clearing and advanced toward the cabin and the house of glass. Tom Woods sat on the doorstep smoking his pipe and mending a butterfly net. He took the pipe from his mouth and waved it above his head.

"Welcome!" he called. "The assassin arrives with his fellow conspirators. Advance, friends, and give the countersign."

"This fellow's Dolf Muller," said Bert.

The Butterfly Man held out his hand in greeting; but his eyes were on a boy and his crutch.

"My name's Bill Harrison," said the boy.

This time the handshake lasted for almost a full minute.

"Making the grade?" the man asked. It was a cryptic question, but Bill seemed to understand it.

"Trying to carry the ball," he answered.

The ghost of a smile came into the man's eyes. "Bill," he said softly, "I think you and I are going to hit it off."

He led the way into the cabin, and set down the butterfly net in a corner. Bill stopped at the

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 specimen cases, but Dolf's eye was caught by the net. He picked it up, felt its weight, swung it at an imaginary insect and almost knocked a picture from the wall. After that he put it down, abashed, and stuck his hands in his pockets, and began to walk restlessly about the room.

"Oh, come on," he said to Bill. "What are you staring at those things for? They're only dead butterflies."

"Go 'way," Bill said absently. There were some papers scattered on the center table, and he took one, and half laid it on the case, and took a pencil from his pocket, and began to sketch. A shadow fell across him but, absorbed, he did not notice it.

"Don't mind him, Mr. Woods," came Dolf's voice. "Bill's always drawing things. He thinks he's an artist."

Bill, recalled to life, started to thrust the paper out of sight. The Butterfly Man caught his hand.

"I didn't know you could do that," he said.

"I don't know as I can," Bill said frankly. "I just do it for fun. I like to draw little things—butterflies, caterpillars, beetles, flies, spiders."

"Oh, I knew I was going to hit it off with you," said the Butterfly Man, and thrust Bill's sketch into his pocket.

Ten minutes later the boys were in the house of glass. When Bert had entered it on his last trip he had come alone; but now Tom Woods was with

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 them, and when he spoke he seemed to speak, in some strange way, particularly to Bill Harrison. He would reach out a gentle hand, capture a butterfly, tell something about it, and then release it, unharmed, to go its way. In this manner they learned that butterflies must drink, and that little shallow pans were in several places for their convenience.

"I remember," Tom Woods said, "coming upon a stream in which were hundreds of drowned butterflies. They were thirsty, and that was the only water, and they lighted on it and couldn't fly up again. Some butterflies will eat and drink after the fashion of the dragon-fly, holding itself poised above its food by the beat of its wings, but most of them must alight to feed. I think they show good sense. Personally I'd hate to have to eat my lunch by running around the block with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Now, over here, you see, I have water dripping slowly over some plants. See those caterpillars feeding on the leaves? Those chaps are funny jiggers. So long as their food is moist they'll live together in harmony; but if their food dries up they'll turn cannibal and eat each other. I'm a peaceful citizen and want no revolutions around here, so I keep them happy."

Dolf snickered. "That's funny."

"No funnier than us humans," the Butterfly Man said gravely. "There would have been no

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 French Revolution if the French people had had bread."

Dolf found the illusion rather foggy. At his birth the fairies who deal out imagination had not bothered to measure him out any at all. He had done very little reading and had but a hazy background of history. He saw that Bert was nodding understandingly and that Bill's eyes were alight with interest. Plainly, at the moment, he was the small end of the party. He fixed his eyes on a point of the roof of the butterfly house and stared at it with a preoccupied expression.

"Ah!" Tom Woods was saying, "there's the Purple Emperor. Pretty thing, isn't he—but a queer taste when it comes to grub. He likes meat that's a bit ancient—bad, to be frank. There's no accounting for tastes. Some persons become preachers and some become bandits. Got any idea what you're going to do when you grow up?" He shot the question at Bill.

Bill shook his head, and held out his finger, and thrilled as a butterfly alighted upon it with curiously clutching feet.

Dolf came out of his self-imposed abstraction. "Bill's going to be a butterfly charmer," he giggled.

Bill looked at him a moment, and then his gaze went back to the fragile bit of splendor upon his finger. "I might do worse," he said slowly and thoughtfully.

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 Dolf's jest, in some way, had fallen flat—his wit usually did fail. He cheered up when something was said about dinner, and made haste to lead the way back to the cabin. However, his high hopes of a feast were doomed to disappointment, for, though Tom Woods opened cans with a speed that was appetizing, his interest wandered from the stove once the food was on the fire. Bill Harrison was at the butterfly cases again, and soon the man was over beside him, and had brought out other cases filled with specimens from far corners of the globe.

"Frail," he said, "but powerful. Here I am with more leg length than I know what to do with, and yet those little things can put me to shame. I run a mile and feel that I'd give a dollar if a blacksmith would happen along and pump some air into me with a bellows. But we have instances where butterflies had been found flying in swarms one thousand miles from the nearest land. Did you ever walk twenty-five miles? I did. All I can say is that those peewees must be hard up for a journey."

The boy's eyes were wide. "You're not fooling me?"

The man's voice changed. "Bill," he said, "I never josh anybody who comes looking for the real thing."

Bill's direct gaze challenged him. "Well, I'm looking," he said.

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 And then Dolf's voice wailed a cry of dire distress. "Gee! Something's burning."

The Butterfly Man had ridiculed his long legs, but they served to carry him to the stove in two jumps. One side of the bacon was burned; and while he was scooping the meat out of the pan the beans began to scorch. All in all it was not much of a meal, and Dolf, who had come in mouth-watering anticipation, was plainly disgusted. But to one of the party, at least, the fare was spiced with the flavor of the gods. In all his life Bill Harrison would ask nothing better than what this day had brought.

There were books on the built-in shelves of the cabin, and after dinner he found them. Presently he was back at the butterfly cases again, comparing the colored plates with the specimens under the glass, unaware of a man who smoked contemplatively and studied him. Bert, stretched off on the ground outside, was content to stare up at the summer sky; but Dolf, whose day had gone badly, was impatient to be off. Thrice he called the time. The fourth summons brought Bert sitting upright.

"Late as that?" he demanded. "I'll call Bill."

"I'll get him," said the Butterfly Man, and went inside. The minutes passed. Dolf kicked at the toe clip of one pedal.

"Why didn't Bill bring a bed?" he demanded.

And then Bill appeared, bright-eyed, with two books under one arm. Bert caught Tom Woods'

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 glance, and promptly took the books and strapped them to the frame of his own wheel.

"The latchstring will always be out for you fellows," the Butterfly Man said, and added, ruefully, that the grub would usually be a mess. "I've eaten so many burned meals," he confided, "that sometimes I feel that inside I must look like a piece of charcoal."

Dolf accepted this in silence.

"I'll take good care of the books," Bill called.

"Take care of yourself," Tom Woods answered.

Out of earshot of the cabin Dolf spoke. "What's the idea of the books? Trying to make up to him by playing wise?"

Bill shook his head. "No. I've done a lot of thinking since . . . I guess there wouldn't be much future for me in my father's store. I'd make a fine clerk in a rush, wouldn't I, stumping about on one leg? Whatever kind of living I make I've got to make it with my brain."

Dolf broke into a derisive giggle.

"Oh, I guess there's room in me for some brains," Bill said placidly. "I'm not all stomach."

All the way back to Springham Dolf rode in advance of the others and spoke not a word, a picture of fat dignity nursing outraged feelings.

Bert was late for supper again. His mother knew where he had gone and had not worried, but

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 his father was put out at this second exhibition of tardiness.

"What puzzles me," he said, "is how you can go shinning up the wrong tree so often. First you go down to the railroad yards for a good time, and then I have to drop you out of the store, and now you take up with some freak character."

"He's not a freak," Bert protested. "He knows a lot."

"About what? Butterflies?"

"He makes a business of catching and raising them."

"Fine job for a grown man," Mr. Quinby said scornfully. After a moment a smile touched his lips. "I can picture Sam Sickles wasting time on him. I suggested that Sam ought to mix in with some of the town societies and get to know folks. 'Mr. Quinby,' he said, 'it's a mistake to waste time on people who cannot boost you up the ladder of success. I'll wait until Springham organizes a Board of Trade and I'll join that.' No, I don't think Sam would care much for your Butterfly Man."

Bert was nettled. "Maybe the Butterfly Man wouldn't care much for Sam Sickles," he said.

Mr. Quinby was plainly unprepared for the answer. He stared at his son in frowning perplexity, and then a flush of annoyance spread over his face. "Evidently," he said with fine sarcasm, "you take more stock in the judgment of this man

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 who fools around with little bugs than you do in mine."

This time it was Bert who flushed. "I don't mean it that way," he said uncomfortably. "But you've never met Mr. Woods and . . ."

"Oh, let it go at that," his father said. "You're sore at Sam because he's making a better stab at things than you made. If you wanted the job why didn't you take care of it?"

Later, as the boy went up to his room, the scene struck him with a sense of tragedy. Why was it, he wondered miserably, that you could have such a good time with a man who was practically a stranger, and then come home and have things rub wrong with your own father? Perhaps the contentment of the Butterfly Man's cabin had given him a new conception. . . at any rate his mind was off along a channel of thought he had never before explored. From time to time, in his memory, boys not very much older than he had disappeared from Springham, and he had heard vague stories that they "could not get along at home." He was suddenly frightened.

His mother, coming to his room, found him with his face in his hands staring down at the floor.

"Why don't you go down to the store and meet Sam?" she asked. "You can't blame your father for thinking you're nursing a grouch. You haven't been near the store since this clerk was hired. You know, Bert, that does look queer."

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 The boy did not lift his head.

"Bert!" His mother's hand was on—his shoulder. "Are you sore about him being there?"

"No," he said after a moment; "I'm not sore about that. But all this praise he gets. . . . It looks as though dad was just saying things to get a crack in at me. That did get me riled. I made up my mind I wouldn't go near this fellow."

"Same old mule," said his mother, but she said it in a tone that took the sting from her words. "There's two sides to this. Look at it straight, Bert. Your father has every reason to think you're playing dog in the manger. You'd think the same thing if you were in his place. You ought to go down and get acquainted with Sam if only to show that you're fair and above board."

The boy shifted his ground. "Father hasn't any right to say things about the Butterfly Man when he doesn't know. . . ."

"Come, come; no steering up side roads. You ought to go to the store. Show your father that you're too big a chap to be small."

"All right," Bert said suddenly; "I'll go. But," he added positively, "I won't like him."

Three mornings later he awoke to find Springham soaking in a steady, persistent downpour of rain. Mr. Quinby, looking out the parlor window at the gray and dismal sky, decided that there would be little business that day and that he might as well run in to the city and see what the jobbers

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 could offer him in the way of stock. The ninetwenty train carried him out of town, and a half-hour later Bert, hunched under an umbrella, was sloshing through the puddles along Washington Avenue.

He entered the store with a queer feeling of strangeness—he who should have looked upon this place almost as a birthright. The first glance showed him that the hand of change had been at work. The shelves were arranged differently, the show cases were more inviting, and a new threesided mirror stood where the purchaser of a suit of clothes could view himself from various angles. In front of the mirror was a young man industriously rubbing the glass.

"Good morning," he said, and put down his polishing cloth, and went behind a show case. "Something in collars to-day? We have a soft collar that's all the rage among high school fellows and college men. Let me see, you'd wear about a fourteen and a half, wouldn't you?"

Bert had been staggered by the smoothness of the clerk's manner and by his flow of words. "I didn't come in to buy," he half stammered.

"We're glad to have you come in if only for a visit," the clerk smiled. "While you're here I might as well show you the collars. You'll need collars sometime and . . ."

"But I don't have to pay for my collars. I'm Bert Quinby."

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 "Oh!" This time it was the clerk who was taken back. "I've heard your father speak of you, but I got the idea you were a little shaver. I suppose you know my name—Samuel Sickles." He held out his hand.

Bert took it. The pressure behind it was firm and muscular. He had built up in his own mind a mental picture of a clerk who was feminine and foppish. Some of his surprise must have revealed itself in his expression, for Sam gave a pleased smile.

"I'll have a better grip than that in a year," he said confidently. "Did you ever read The Secrets of Business Success?"

Bert shook his head.

"That's the book that put me on the track. Shake hands as though you meant it; a fishy handshake is like a whining voice. Be strong; it takes a strong body to battle the world. I never miss my exercises morring and night. I take a cold plunge every morning. You've got to keep fit if you want to climb in the world. You've got to feel peppy if you want to put pep into your work. Do you take regular exercise and watch your diet?"

Diet? Bert thought diets were only for old persons who were sick.

"You ought to," Sam said earnestly. "I'll have to lend you that book, but you can't keep it long. I try to read something from it every day. You

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 can live only once; live for success. I picked out that sentence last night. A couple of years of living for efficiency and you'd be in shape to go out and twist the world around."

The clerk commanded an air of worldly wisdom and radiated an atmosphere of sure confidence that Bert had not found in any of the Springham boys he knew. It pleased him to be told that he wore the earmarks of success.

"You've made some changes here," he said, unbending. "The store looks good."

"Oh, your father did that. I've taken some of the detail off his hands and that's given him more time to plan. Without vision and plan, two-thirds of all work is waste motion. I got that out of the book, too. You look ahead, don't you?"

"Well . . ." Bert was doubtful of what looking ahead might signify, but he did not want to display his ignorance. Sam misconstrued his hesitation.

"Of course," the clerk admitted, "you don't have to look ahead in some ways. This business will be yours some day. It's been made for you. But I've got to depend upon myself. Ever hear of James Hill? He was a railroad man—an empire builder. He said he didn't care what you earned, if you didn't save money success was not in you. I've saved something every week since I went to work."

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 Bert found a place where he could show to advantage, and was quick to seize the opportunity.

"I save money. I've got quite a bit in the bank across the street," he said, and could see at once that his stock had gone up in Sam's estimation.

"I don't propose to let my money stay in the bank," the clerk said. "Make money work for you . . . invest it. Get a big profit. I'm just waiting around to find an opening for my capital, and then I'll blossom out as a business man."

"I've been thinking of that myself," Bert nodded. He had not thought of anything of the kind, but it sounded important to make the assertion.

Sam smiled. The idea of a schoolboy talking of investing capital! "You couldn't do it on just a few dollars," he warned good-naturedly.

"I've got more than that—about three hundred dollars. Some of it I saved, and some of it is Christmas and birthday money sent to me by my grandfather, and my uncle and my two aunts."

Sam's smile was succeeded by a look of respect. "Looking around for any particular business?"

"Anything that promises a good return," Bert answered. He had heard his father use the phrase.

"You'll find it," Sam admitted. "If a man's wise enough to save money he's wise enough to find a way to use it."

The clerk, during this dialogue, had not neg-

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 lected his work. He finished the mirrors. He polished the show cases. He wiped invisible dust from the shelves. Three customers came in and he attended them with the air of one who found it a pleasure to serve their wants. Noon came, and Bert prepared to go home through the rain.

"If I let you have the book," Sam asked, "can you have it back to me by to-morrow?"

Bert promised.

"Better put it under your coat. It cost me a dollar. I don't want to get it wet."

Bert hid the book and was off. The clerk stood in the doorway and watched him make his way down the rain-spattered street.

"Sam," he mused, "you surely do fall into the luckiest straits. As soon as you discover an opportunity in this town I think you can put your hands on a partner with some capital to invest."

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URLED up in a chair in his room Bert spent what was left of that rainy day trying to extract wisdom from The Secrets of Business Success. The book was the work of an energetic, noisy man who shouted, and banged, and tromboned his message. There were no quiet pages of contemplation. Every word was a bullet, every sentence a volley, and every paragraph a crash of artillery.

When the boy closed the book at last he stared at the covers doubtfully. He had a vague feeling that very little of it had left a clear impression. The clamor and the tumult had deafened him and bewildered him as well. But of this much he was certain: if business was as many-sided a puzzle as the book said it was, and if Sam Sickles understood all the thunderous advice that was within these pages, then Sam Sickles was a person worthy of all respect and admiration.

At six o'clock Mr. Quinby came home in jovial good humor. He had stopped at the store on his way from the train to the house.

"So Sam lent you the book." He was plainly

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 pleased. "I didn't think he'd part with it unless he was chloroformed. You must have charmed him. How much of it did you read?"

"All of it," Bert answered.

His father was surprised. "Like it?"

"Y . . . yes; but there's a lot of it I don't understand."

"You didn't expect to pry the cover off business and find the answer right under the lid, did you? What do you think of Sam?"

"He's all right. Does he talk about nothing but business?"

Mr. Quinby's voice grew a trifle sharp. "Did you find business talk tiresome?"

"No; I just wondered. He's not like most fellows."

"That's why he's got a business head," Mr. Quinby said decisively. "He likes you. I'm glad to find you two getting together. Run down to the store to-morrow and pick out a couple of ties."

"I'd sooner have the new collars."

"Ho! So that's it! Was Sam talking those new collars to you?"

"Before he knew who I was."

"I have an idea he'd be able to sell that collar to a man without a neck. Well, select the ties and take half a dozen of the collars, too. Perhaps you had better go down and pick them out to-night. Sam will worry about that book until he gets it back."

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 So Bert went back to the store through the persistent rain, and Sam counted out the collars and wisely aided him in selecting his ties. Then the clerk took the book and held it in loving, caressing hands.

"Do you think success thoughts?" he asked.

Bert had never yet found any momentous occasion demanding the chartering of the channels of his mind. The question, popped at him suddenly and unexpectedly, left his memory groping for something it could not quite grasp.

"Was . . . wasn't there a chapter. . . ." he began.

"Sure; the fifth chapter. You remember 'Think defeat and you're licked. Think success and you're over the line with the ball.' It's true. Every time a man walks in here I say to myself, 'I'm going to sell you something more than just what you came in for.' I make myself believe it. When I start to make that sale I'm full of confidence. The customer hesitates. He's undecided. All the confidence is on my side, and I make the sale. What did it? A success thought."

Bert's imagination applied the idea another way. "If I go out for the nine next spring and believe I'll make. . . ."

"Absolutely!" Sam said. "Believe in yourself and you force the other fellow to believe in you."

Mr. Quinby came in, announced that the rain was about over, and went to the rear to dispose

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 of the umbrella he carried. Bert and Sam walked down to the door.

"I'll be around to-morrow," said Bert.

Sam looked ill at ease. "Of course, this is your father's store and you can come and go as you please, but I wish you wouldn't. Didn't you read what was in the eighth chapter? 'Guard against too much conversation; talk is the thief of time. Time is money.' I've got my way to make in the world and I can't afford to waste time. Why can't you meet me on Sunday morning when I'm free?"

Bert was huffed. "I guess I can get along without talking to you at all if it hurts you that much."

"I guess you didn't pay much attention to the eighth chapter," Sam said. "I'll tell you what . . . let's meet Sunday morning and take a walk around the town. I always walk around Sundays and see if I can find any business opportunities."

Bert was surprised to find himself appeased and interested. "What time Sunday? I must, first go to church."

"Make it afternoon, then. You meet me halfway on what I want; I meet you halfway on what you want. That's one of the big principles of success—compromise. Remember that passage in the early part of the book? A business man must not allow his ideas to get into a rut. He must keep an open mind and be ready to shift his posi-

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46 belongs to the second half of the fourteenth century, and contains many passages of great beauty. With Eystein the harp of the skald ceased to reverberate, and Lilja forms a really dignified finale. A more brilliant close of the skaldic epoch could scarcely be desired. It is true that echoes of the skaldic harp were heard even in the fifteenth century, as, for instance, Lopt Guttormson's "Hattalykill" (Key to Metres), an erotic poem, which in form is an imitation of Snorre Sturlason's Háttatal (Enumeration of Metres), but they were mere echoes, and the fact remains that Eystein's Lilja marks the close of the skaldic epoch and the beginning of the Rima (ballad).

In the production of sagas the popular spirit of the North reared for itself a literary monument of no less importance than are the Eddas and the skaldic lays. The saga, too, had its principal home in Iceland. We have already indicated how circumstances naturally brought it about that valuable historical materials were collected there, which not only concerned events in Iceland, but also on account of the many threads by which the Icelanders felt themselves tied to Norway, embraced the most remarkable events of this country as well as the memory of what had happened in other lands with which the Icelanders had had intercourse. Like the poetry, these materials were handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, and when at length the conditions for a real literary activity were at hand a most remarkable literature was produced out of these traditions. The first book of which we have any knowledge was, according to the unanimous testimony of all authorities, the history of Iceland, written by about the year 1120, that is to say about 250 years after the settlement of Iceland. The greatest bloom of saga writing is during the first half of the thirteenth century, and about the close of that century the saga-epoch ended.


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 tion if necessary. I can see you've got a good business head."

All the way home an amused thought kept running in Bert's mind. A wide grin was still on his face as he entered the house.

"What's the joke?" Mrs. Quinby asked.

"Sam says I've got a good business head."

"And what's funny about a business head, Bert?"

"Oh, nothing." The grin grew wider. "I was just wondering what dad would say to that."

However, all thought of business was wiped from his mind when he came down to breakfast late in the morning and learned that Bill Harrison had called for him while he had been asleep.

"Did he say what he wanted, Mom?"

"He said he was going out to that Butterfly Man's place."

Bert hurried his breakfast and went in search of Dolf. He found him carrying trays of freshly baked coffee cake to the bakery counter.

"Want to come out and see Tom Woods?" Bert asked.

Dolf shook his head with decision. "And get another mess of burned stuff? I guess not. I can get better grub than that at home. Anyway, I don't like the way he talks of things, just showing off how much he knows, and making a fuss over Bill, and insulting everybody else."

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 "I didn't hear him insult anybody," Bert said in surprise.

"Some people don't know when they're insulted," said Dolf, "but I'm not one of them. You can go out there as often as you like, but don't count on me."

So Bert rode out alone to the cabin and the house of glass. The day was fresh and sparkling after the rain, the road had been washed clean, and the tire treads swished and whirred as they griped the surface of the highway. To-day he did not have Bill along to hold him back, and the speedometer recorded a swift succession of the miles. Before noon he pushed through the path, where the brush was still wet, and came to his destination.

There was about the clearing an atmosphere of emptiness and desertion. No sound broke the stillness. It seemed that it must have been days since a human was here. . . and yet, in the soft ground, Bert found the marks of Bill's tires and the puncture of Bill's crutch.

The door of the cabin was open a bare two inches. Bert leaned his bicycle against the wall, so gently that he did not disturb the hush of the place. After that he sat in the doorway. The Butterfly Man had guaranteed this as a good loafing spot. Staring off into the distance, Bert found a drowsy peace taking possession of his being. Time ceased to have any importance.

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 Probably Bill and the Butterfly Man had gone off together. They might be back in an hour or they might not be back in six. He did not care how long they stayed away.

And then, of a sudden, his eyes popped open. Bill's bicycle was leaning against a tree at the side of the clearing. Now that his wits were sharpened he noticed that the marks of Bill's crutch punctured the soft ground and led to the cabin and did not lead forth again. For the first time the stillness, the absence of all sound, seemed uncanny. The flesh along his spine began to prickle with goose flesh.

A voice broke the silence. "How are you making out, Bill?"

The reply was a suppressed grunt.

Relief shot through Bert, and he sprang to his feet. "Hello! Everybody asleep?"

"It's Bert," cried Bill's voice, not suppressed this time. A chair scraped along the floor and the door was thrown open. There stood Tom Woods, an open book in one hand and a black and battered pipe in the other.

"Hooks and sinkers," he said, "but you'd make a fine burglar! What do you wear, gum shoes? Why all the stealth? How long have you been prowling around out here?"

"I don't know; about fifteen minutes."

"The door was open. Why didn't you come in?"

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 Bert gave him a look of surprise. "You can't just walk into somebody's house."

The Butterfly Man reached out, and caught his arm, and dragged him inside. "I might have known you'd have some such thought," he chuckled. "Where's the fat little fellow you had with you last time, Dolf somebody or other."

"He wouldn't come."

"So he washes his hands of me. I don't blame him. He had a nasty look in his eyes when he saw the burned ham. Oh, Bill! What kind of stunts are you trying to spring on us? You let out a roar when you heard Bert's voice and now you won't even get up and say hallo to him."

"Too busy," said Bill. He had a brush in one hand, a smear of yellow and a smear of blue across one cheek, and was bent over a square of bristol board laid down alongside a specimen butterfly case. He made a touch with the brush, and drew back his head to view the result, and gave a little chuckle of pleasure. "Getting it," he called, and dabbed at something on the other side of the specimen case.

Bert walked over and looked. The something was a box of water colors.

"Mr. Woods gave them to me," Bill explained gleefully. "He said if I wanted to draw butterflies I might as well get them in their true colors."

"You might as well waste time that way as any other," the Butterfly Man observed.

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 Bill's head came up. "You didn't tell me that. You said that some day I might be able to paint the pictures for books and magazine articles you might write."

The Butterfly Man threw up his hands in a comic gesture of dismay. "There you go, spilling the beans and letting out our secrets. And we were going to keep all this under cover until we were ready to be famous."

Bill's eyes, direct, burning, were on his face. "You meant it, didn't you?"

"I meant it," Tom Woods said in a changed voice. "We both like butterflies. If you can make the grade drawing them, and if I can make the grade writing about them, we ought to come through. But it means years."

"What's years?" Bill demanded, and bent over his drawing.

Bert's gaze had gone from the man, to the boy, and back to the man again. What's years! The light from the window fell upon Bill absorbed in what he was doing. . . and upon the stump that had once been a whole leg. Something in Bert stirred. He realized then, in a sort of sudden intuition, that Tom Woods, with the instinct of a great heart, was going out of his way to kindle ambition and purpose before a boy's soul could grow sick with the knowledge of its handicap.

To-day the man, unaided, cooked the meal, for Bert was glued to the back of Bill's chair watch-

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 ing every motion of the brushes. In the end Tom Woods had to drag them both to the table; and even there Bill talked of nothing but the difficulty of shading from one to the other of the brilliant colors of his model. And the Butterfly Man listened, and nodded, and smiled a smile that was both whimsical and grave.

Bert would have preferred to go back to the chair and watch, but the soiled dishes could not be ignored. The man washed, and he wiped the china and put it away. The water pails were empty, and they could not be ignored, either. He began to work the pump at the sink.

"Not that way." Tom Woods stopped him. "That's all right for winter. In open weather I like to go down to the spring, and dip in, and see the water come up clear and cool."

Bert followed at his heels, carrying one of the pails. Outdoors they fell into step.

"Bill's doing great, isn't he?" Bert asked.

The Butterfly Man was silent a moment. "You're a friend of his, aren't you?" he asked.

"I'd like to hear anybody say I'm not."

"You wouldn't want to hurt him? Don't look at me like that; I know you wouldn't. I've seen a lot of young fellows ruined by too much praise."

Bert digested this while they filled the pails and carried them back. Bill had finished a painting, and had propped it up and was stumping about viewing it from various angles.

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 "What do you think of it?" he asked impulsively.

Bert half closed his eyes and studied it in a silence that grew prolonged.

"I knew I didn't have it," Bill said in disappointment. "It doesn't look real; it looks just painted. All right; I'll get it some day. You'll see." He went back to his chair, and the Butterfly Man began to whistle.

"Years, Bill," he said.

"Sure," said Bill; "I forgot. Trying to kick the ball before I had it." And then he was bent over a fresh piece of board.

All through the afternoon the Butterfly Man wrote letters to butterfly men in scattered parts of the world. . . and all through the afternoon Bert hovered over Bill's chair and never seemed to weary of watching the busy brushes at work. By and by it grew darker, but neither of the boys seemed to notice the gathering gloom. Tom Woods, at the table, began to find writing dificult.

"Run up that window shade," he called. "I'm not an owl."

"It is up," Bert answered, and looked at the sky. A tumble of angry clouds was coming out of the southwest in a smolder of black and dirty gray. A faint peal of thunder reached his ears.

"Look here, Bill," he said in concern, "we'd better be hopping along."

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 Bill glanced up languidly, stared, and began to put paints and brushes away.

Tom Woods joined them. "You fellows can't leave now. This rain would be on you in twenty minutes. If I'm any judge of weather it's going to pour cats and codfish. You'd be drenched. You'd better wait until it's over."

"Suits me," said Bill, but went on packing away his materials. The lowering day made further painting impossible. Standing in the open doorway they watched the tempest approach—first a scurrying of wind-whipped clouds, and then the storm center itself. The growl of the thunder was louder now, and ribbons of lightning danced on the horizon. Trees began to bend and sway with a wild rustling of leaves. Suddenly the wind had a wet, cold smell. The day grew black, and the rain was upon them, a rushing sheet of water that slashed against the cabin and drove across the threshold of the room.

"Close it," Tom Woods cried, and the door was pushed shut against the pressure of the wind and bolted. The man felt his way across the floor and lighted a lamp.

"Where would you have been if you had started?" he asked.

"About drowned," said Bert.

"I wasn't thinking about that," Bill spoke up. "I was thinking about my paint box."

Bert gave a start. In the steady drip of two

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 days ago Sam Sickles had thought only of his book.

The cabin drummed under the stinging volleys of driven rain. After an hour they sensed that the fury of the storm was spent. They opened the door. It was still raining, but the sky was growing brighter and the fag end of the day was making feeble claim of its own. Grass and flowers had been beaten flat, and the trees were drooped and forlorn. Yet the smell from the ground was fresh, and earthy, and sweet.

Bert gave a groan. "We left our bikes out. Look at them now."

It was Tom Woods who carried them in, queerly frescoed with streaks and blotches of wet mud. Bert wiped them dry with cloths. The rain had dwindled to an intermittent drizzle, but the clock said twenty minutes past seven.

"How are you going to get home?" the Butterfly Man asked. "It will be dark soon."

"If we ride fast. . . ." Bert began.

"I guess you're forgetting me," said Bill.

Bert had forgotten that his friend would not be able to hold the pace. He glanced doubtfully out of doors. "They'll be expecting us home. . . ."

"Telephone them," said Tom Woods. "Tell them you're going to spend the night with me. I don't like this thing of riding a bicycle after dark on the county highway. An automobile might swing around a curve and crash you."

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 So Bert telephoned, and rejoiced that it was his mother's, and not his father's, voice that answered. It was plain from the expression of his face, that his explanation and the plan had not been received with enthusiasm. For a minute or two he kept repeating a patient, resigned, "Yes, Mom; yes, Mom," and then hung up the receiver with an audible sigh of relief.

"Mom says she'll telephone your house, Bill."

Bill nodded. "I'll bet you got rats."

"Well. . . ." Bert hesitated.

"Another case of being judged by the company you keep," the Butterfly Man said with a grimace. "Your mother thinks I'm a bad egg or I wouldn't be associating with two such wildcats. Of course you got rats. First, you should have started home earlier. Second, are you sure you're not wet? Third, you have no right to impose upon somebody who's almost a stranger. Fourth, don't sit up too late."

Bert's eyes had widened. "How did you know?"

"I had a mother . . . once," Tom Woods said wistfully. "Any other instructions?"

"Yes; I'm not to miss church in the morning."

"You won't."

They had a wonderful supper that night—tomato omelette, mashed potatoes, peas, hot biscuits and apple butter. After the dishes had been put away, Tom Woods brought out a banjo, and

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 leaned with the back of his chair against the wall, and twanged the strings and sang them stirring songs. Two of the melodies they knew, "The Miner's Daughter" and "Solomon Levi," and roared the words with a gusto that shook the lamp. Tiring of singing, Tom Woods put the banjo away; and Bert told of Sam Sickles and spoke of the clerk with frank admiration. The Butterfly Man smoked and nodded.

"I've heard of that type before," he said. "Single-track minds—think of nothing but getting ahead. They usually make good, but anybody who stands in their way gets hurt. How long has he been working in the store?"

"About a couple of months."

"You had the job, didn't you? How did you come to get out?"

"Oh," said Bert, "the old man and I couldn't get along."

"The what?" Tom Woods asked mildly.

"I mean my father," Bert said, and squirmed uncomfortably.

Tom Woods knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Your father is older than you, son, and he knows more. Don't fool yourself about that. Usually fathers think a lot about their sons, and usually sons think mainly of themselves. Well, how about bed? I'll have to knock together a shake-down for you fellows."

But it was a long time before Bert dropped off

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 to sleep. Tom Woods had started an uncomfortable train of thought running through his mind.

In the morning, after breakfast, they went with the man to a country church; and afterwards they bid him good-by and started back toward Springham, Bill with his precious box of paints and brushes lashed to the frame of his bicycle. Twice the box slipped, and they had to stop and secure it anew. As a result of these delays it was long past noon when Bert reached home. His father had dozed off in a chair and his mother was reading; but she put down the book and set him out food that she had kept warm against the time of his arrival. While he ate she asked him many questions dealing with his visit, and at last seemed to be satisfied. He went up to his room, got out the old accordion, and tried some of the melodies that Tom Woods had twanged on the banjo.

"Hush, Bert," his mother admonished him guardedly from the hall.

"Oh, let him play," his father's voice called. "I'm awake, anyway. Bring it down, Bert, and give us a tune."

Bert brought the musical relic downstairs and played "The Washington Post." His father admitted that it was not bad and, proud of his achievement, he played the march again. When he began the piece the third time Mr. Quinby yawned.

"Is that the only thing you know?" he asked.

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 However, it was a good-humored question, and Bert laughed. Strangely, he had no desire that afternoon to fare from the house and seek outside amusement.

At the supper table his father said:

"Bert, I was all out of patience with you when you left the store, but I should have had a clerk long ago. I see that now. Sam takes a lot of bothersome details off my hands and I don't feel so dragged at the end of the week. You know, that business will be yours some day. The bigger I can make it, the bigger it will be when you get it."

Bert was on the point of saying he had no yearning for men's furnishings, but the memory of Tom Woods' words came back to still his tongue.

The same quiet contentment that had been part of him all afternoon remained during the evening. When he started for bed, his father followed him out into the hall.

"Have a good time last night?"

"Yes, sir."

"It was lonesome here. First time you've been away from home over night." His hand fell on the boy's shoulder. "I guess I've been too busy to pay much attention to you. We've sort of fallen away from each other. We'll have to remedy that and have some more of the good times. Right?"

"Right!" said Bert. He was light of heart as he went up to bed. . . and only then did he

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 realize that this was the day he was to have met Sam Sickles and to have accompanied the clerk as he strolled about Springham looking for opportunities.

On the morrow he fell into one of those neryous streaks of industry that sometimes attack boys even in the most languid days of August. The morning was given over to scraping soot from the inside of the furnace fire box, and he came up from his labors as begrimed as any chimney sweep. The coolness of the bathtub was inviting, and he splashed there until his mother warned him for the third time that she would not keep his luncheon waiting all day. The meal over, he debated the afternoon's course of action. There would be no use in hunting up Bill Harrison; Bill would be engaged with his paints and would prove indifferent company. He felt no desire to see Dolf Muller. In the end he brought out a book, dropped into a chair, and read until his father came home to supper.

"I'm going to lodge meeting to-night," Mr. Quinby said. "Sam will be alone at the store. Why not run down?"

Bert hesitated. "He doesn't like to talk when there's work to do. He says conversation is the thief of time."

"Does he?" Mr. Quinby chuckled. "Well, we'll make this one exception. I told him you

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 might be along. I think he's anxious to see you about something."

So Bert went down to Washington Avenue. The visit was destined to have far-reaching consequences.

Sam Sickles, attending to a customer's wants, gave him the briefest of nods and thereafter paid strict attention to the sale. But when the transaction was completed and the customer gone, the clerk turned eagerly to his visitor.

"I thought you were going to meet me yesterday morning, Bert."

"I was at the Butterfly Man's. I went there Saturday, and the storm came up and I couldn't get home."

"The Butterfly Man? Oh, yes; your father told me about that fellow." Sam's tone showed that, whatever the impression he held of Tom Woods, it was not of the highest. "You should have been with me yesterday. I found it."

"Your opportunity?" Bert asked breathlessly.

"My opportunity," Sam said, and uttered the words with something of the air of a captain of finance.

If Sam's wisdom had loomed admirably before, at this moment it was colossal. In Bert's eyes the clerk took on an added stature and seemed invested with romantic and dynamic possibilities.

"A business plan," Sam went on earnestly, "must be sound and safe . . . and original.

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 Woolworth made a fortune because he was the first man to think of the five-and-ten-cent store. Where do most of the people in this town spend their money. . . I mean for furniture, and jewelry, and clothing?"

Bert considered this. "In the city, I guess."

"Why? Because the big stores have big stocks to select from. When a woman wants to buy a rug, or a coat, how does she know what store to go to? What does your mother do?"

"She looks up the ads in the city newspaper."

"I knew it," Sam cried in triumph, "and that's my opportunity. Four papers are published in the city. Some stores advertise in one paper and not in another. I've been looking it up. If a woman wants to be sure of getting the bargains, she's got to see what's advertised in all papers. How many newspapers do you take at home?"

"One; the Herald."

"Almost everybody buys only one. That means they don't know what's in the other papers and they won't spend twelve cents to buy four papers every day. Now, suppose they could see all four papers and never have to buy one? Wouldn't that be worth fifty cents a month?"

Bert nodded. "I guess so."

"I'm going to organize. The Shoppers' Service and hire a small store. A woman pays fifty cents a month for membership, and what does she get? Every morning three copies of each paper come

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 to the store. I cut up one, cut out every ad and then put all bed ads in one group, rug ads in another group, silk waist ads in another group, and so on. If a woman is going shopping, she comes to the store before train time and looks through all the papers. If she's rushed, she telephones and says, 'What rug ads are running to-day?' and I read her each rug ad. Why, there's never been anything like this idea. It's original."

But Bert's eyes were beginning to draw together.

"I struck a rock, though," Sam confessed, "and for a while it had me stumped. Store rent, and telephone hire, and newspapers, and light . . . it takes a lot of half-dollars."

"That's what I was thinking," said Bert.

Sam gave him a glance of respect. "You'll have a business head some day. But look here! Maybe thirty or forty women will come in every day to read the papers. They'll come in when they don't want to shop just to get a line on prices. They sit down at a nice table. They begin to talk back and forth. It's a sort of social group, and that's the time to sell them a cup of tea, or a sandwich, or a piece of cake, or some ice cream. I'll put in a little gas stove and then I'll be all set to serve little luncheons. Women will get used to meeting in there. On a cold day they'll come in for a hot drink, and on a hot day for a cold drink. It will get to be a sort of woman's club. I ought

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 to be able to sell about five hundred dollars' worth of food a month—that's only about fifteen dollars a day. Then I have the fifty-cent memberships, and I can take subscriptions for magazines, and perhaps handle theater tickets for the city shows. It's a gold mine."

Bert's doubts had been swept away. There seemed to be so many different ways in which such a business could take in money!

"When are you going to start?" he asked.

"I don't know. I need about $800, and I don't care to put in more than $400 of my own money. I don't figure I can afford to risk more than $400. It will cost a lot for tables, and table cloths, and dishes and a few flowers every day. If I can find somebody with a little money to put into this'll sell him a one-third share and start business."

"That shouldn't be hard. You ought to be able to find a man who'll go into that."

"Man or boy," said Sam, "it's all the same if he has the money."

Bert, on the instant, saw a prize within his grasp. "I could put in $300," he said eagerly.

Sam hesitated. "I don't know whether that would be enough. I'd like to have you; in fact I had you in mind because I knew you had some money. I don't know about $300, though. You couldn't get any more, could you? Well, give me a day to figure it out. I'll let you know."

Bert came away that night doubly anxious to be

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 part of the enterprise because the chance gave promise of slipping through his fingers.

"Only one way to start in business," Sam told his reflection as he turned out the store lights. "Get somebody else to go in with you. Then, if the business fails, somebody else has to stand part of the loss."

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EALTHY youth, as a rule, does not carry much of its worries to bed. Bert slept as soundly that night as though an El Dorado, a magic carpet of business adventure, a golden key to fortune, did not wait upon Sam's decision. But in the morning he was keenly awake to hope and to fear the moment his eyes opened. He reviewed words, phrases, sentences of the night before, and his heart sank. He had merely dreamed a dream. Why should the brilliant Sam seek the partnership of a boy whose business experience had been confined to carrying orders through the town?

He waited all day for news of the decision, and no word came. At the supper table he asked his father, trying to speak casually:

"Did Sam say anything about wanting to see me?"

"I doubt if Sam gave you a thought," Mr. Quinby answered. "We were hard at it rearranging some of the stock. He's strictly business when there's business to be done. He sticks right to it."

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 Bert wondered what his father would say if he knew that Sam was spreading his wings and preparing to fly.

Another day and no word of the verdict. That night Bert, unable to restrain longer his impatience, went down to Washington Avenue and waited until the lights went out and Sam and his father came away, separating outside the store. Watching Sam's approach, he suddenly thought it might be better to meet the clerk as though the encounter were by chance. Whistling, he sauntered up the avenue, his gaze turned toward the shop windows as though their varied displays were new and captivating to his eyes.

"Hello, there," said Sam.

The start of surprise he gave was well-acted. "Hello, Sam. What are you doing here? I thought the store had closed long ago."

"We've been dressing up stock. It takes time. A business that never spruces up is like a man who always wears the same suit. I thought you'd be around to see me."

"Oh," Bert said carelessly, "I wanted to give you a couple of more days to think it over."

"I've come to a decision," said Sam.

Bert waited; but the clerk, his brows knit, seemed lost in a last aspect of the enterprise. And at that all Bert's assumed ease fled and left him with only a stricken thought that the judgment had gone against him.

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 "You're going to let me in, aren't you?" he asked in alarm.

"That depends," Sam said. "A business man must weigh everything, and view it from every angle. Never leap overboard; business waters run deep. If you want to put in nothing but money I'm afraid it's no go."

"What else do you want?"

"You—your time—your energy. How did Carnegie build up his fortune in steel? He surrounded himself with eager, ambitious men. When school is out in the afternoon will you come into the store and hustle to make it prosperous? Yes or no?"

"Yes."

"Then you're in," Sam said with satisfaction. "The Shoppers' Service has been born. Let's go into the ice cream store and draw up an agreement. I've been looking up those things; I know how to draw one. I'm not treating. We'll each pay for our own. I've got to hold on to my capital."

They went to a table in the rear of the sweet shop, and Sam drew paper and fountain pen from his pocket. Bert, looking over his shoulder, read as he wrote:

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"There!" Sam announced. "That's a binding document."

It looked legal and imposing to Bert, but his eyes had clouded. "Why do I get only one-third?" he asked.

"Isn't an idea worth something?" Sam demanded. "One-third to me for my money, one-third to you for your money, and the other one-third to me for the idea. When a man invents something, that's only an idea, but he gets a royalty on it. That's business."

Bert was half convinced. But one-third seemed so small. . ..

"No use wasting time," Sam said irritably, and reached for the agreement. "We sign this or I tear it up."

Bert clutched at the opportunity that seemed to be slipping. "I'll sign," he said, and another copy of the agreement was written. That night Bert slept with his copy under his pillow.

A tinge of that desire for secrecy that comes, at some time, to every boy, was now his. He cherished a vision of future prosperity, of taking the town by the ears and of being pointed out as a young man who would go far. He did not tell his mother what lay in store for him, nor did he so much as hint at the plan to his father. To let

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 another into the secret would have seemed, somehow, to make the whole affair commonplace and public.

And yet, he wanted to confide in the Butterfly Man.

Why this should be so he did not stop to analyze. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, was the fear that those at home would ridicule his aspirations. And so, as many another boy had done before, he set out to open his secret heart to a stranger, secure in his belief that some magic part of the stranger would understand and would give him a vague something he was not sure he would find at home.

It was noon when he reached the cabin in the clearing. Tom Woods was cooking the noonday meal, and took another plate from the closet and spun it across the table.

"Smells good in here," said Bert, and sniffed with appreciation.

"Ought to," the man drawled. "Chickens stewed with noodles. I had a hunch that you or Bill would be along, and I wanted to do myself proud. Bill isn't plugging along behind you, is he?"

"No."

"Sorry. Sort of wish that keg of gunpowder would breeze in and let me get a look at his drawings. Well, you'll have to eat your share and Bill's. I can't give you any aid. When you're forty you

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 can't pinch-hit for somebody else at a feed. A forty-year-old stomach won't stand for it."

Bert ate. Now that he was here, he found something holding back what it had been on his tongue to tell. He was reluctant to break the splendor of the dream that was all his. Gorged to the limit at last, he leaned back in his chair and stared blissfully across the table. The Butterfly Man, who had already lighted his pipe, stared back with gravity in his eyes.

"Get rid of it," he said pleasantly. "You'll feel better."

Bert was startled. "Get rid of what?"

"What you came out here to tell me. What have you done, robbed a bank? Set fire to a hospital? What's the crime? Learned to play a ukulele?"

Bert shook his head. "No; I'm going into business."

"Who are you going to work for?"

"It's my own business—a partnership."

The Butterfly Man, with a sudden motion, took the pipe out of his mouth. "With that smart-Alec clerk in your father's store? What a noodle-head I'm becoming! I might have known, the way he had you wrapped up in him, that there was a hook in it somewhere. How far have you gone? Have you put in any money?"

"Not yet; but I've signed a contract. We signed it last night."

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 "Let's see it."

Bert took the paper from his pocket and handed it across the table. The man read it, once, twice, three times, and his pipe smoldered and went out.

"Two-thirds for Sam," he observed at last. "I'm not surprised. He reminds me of a chap I knew years ago. Great fisherman. Always got the most fish. If he was one of a boat party, and somebody pulled in a couple of good ones, he'd be right over with his line. No such thing as respecting anybody else's place. He was out to get two-thirds of the fish and I guess he got them, but he left a mighty bad taste in the mouth. What is this Shoppers' Service?"

Bert explained. Not a muscle in the man's face moved, but once he shook his head ever so slightly.

"You don't like it?" Bert asked, disappointed.

"Never mind that now. Why does Sam get two-thirds of the profits?"

"Why, it's his plan. He's going to put in the experience and the knowledge. That's worth something."

"Yes; if he can deliver. But how do you know he has this knowledge?"

"He's read books about business. . . ."

"I've read books about health, but I'm not a doctor. How do you know he has this knowledge? How did he prove it to you?"

Bert was silent. Abruptly the Butterfly Man

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 stood up and began to clear the table. After a moment the boy left his chair to help. The man's argument had stumped him; yet, with something of his old doggedness, he clung to his original belief. Hadn't his father praised Sam? Hadn't the clerk been held up to him as a model after whom it might be well to pattern?

The Butterfly Man put the last dish away. "What does your father think of this?"

"I haven't told him yet."

"Why not; afraid?"

"N . . . no." Bert made a vague gesture with his hands. "You know how fathers are."

The man made no comment. "You've got to tell him."

"I will."

"When?"

"Soon."

"That won't do, old man. You've got to tell him to-day."

Bert looked up quickly. "Why?"

"Well . . . Let's look at it this way: Your father thinks a lot of this Sam chap. He's spent time to train him. Sam fills a niche in the store, takes a certain amount of work on his shoulders and makes himself valuable. When he leaves. . . ."

"Leaves?" Bert echoed.

"Why, certainly. When this new business starts he's got to leave your father. Your father can't

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 find a new clerk in a day. You can't tell him at the last minute."

"I never thought of that," Bert said weakly.

"That's the trouble, Bert," the Butterfly Man sighed. "Fellows of your age forget so many things."

Here was a complication as disastrous as it was unexpected. The boy pictured in his mind the interview that had to be, and did not find it to his liking. He had not given a thought to how this might affect his father's fortunes. . . he had been too much concerned with the rosy promise of his own chance. Why, this was just like. . . just like stealing a clerk out of the store.

Contrition smote him. He had not been much of a help to the business, but even his going had been felt. The loss of Sam Sickles would be a calamity. Since the evening he had brought his accordion downstairs he and his father had had many fine hours. . . but he nursed no false conceptions of what to-night would bring. His father's face would darken and then a wrath of words would pour down upon his head. It wasn't a pleasant thing to think about.

The shadow of it lay over him all the way back to Springham. The mellow chimes of a church bell announced six o'clock as he rode into town. While yet some distance from the house, he dismounted from his wheel and pushed it before him; and instead of leaving the bicycle propped against

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 the porch and going in the front way, he entered the house by the kitchen. His movements were furtive, and sharp eyes would have read in him something of guilt.

But his mother was busy preparing to carry a roast of lamb to the dining room. "Hurry, Bert," she said. "You'll just have time to wash."

His father and his mother were at the table when he came downstairs. The lamb, tender and juicy, was as dry straw on his tongue. He fidgeted in his chair. His mother could observe him now, and slowly a shadow spread over her face.

"I'm . . . I'm taking all my money out of the bank," the boy said suddenly and explosively.

Mr. Quinby laid down his fork. "What for?"

"I'm going in business."

Slowly a twinkle of amusement grew in the man's eyes. He began to chuckle. "Sam's been talking to you?"

"Yes, sir."

"That fellow could talk business ambition into a brass monkey." To the man the thing was a joke. He was amused at the thought of a boy adventuring into the realm of man's work. "I suppose this is going to be a real up-and-going concern?"

"Yes, sir."

"Going to rent an office or a store?" The tone was jocular.

"A store."

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 "A store? Great Scott, I didn't think it was that serious. You mean you're honestly thinking of renting a store?"

"We've got to have a store."

"We?" This time the man's tone was sharp. "Who's in the thing with you?"

"Sam."

It was out at last, and Bert felt that a load was lifted from his heart. The effect was electrical. Mrs. Quinby gave a nervous start and upset her cup of tea. Mr. Quinby, after an exclamation of anger, pushed away his plate and sat there black and glowering. Several seconds Passed before he spoke.

"Tell me what crack-brained plan you're up to now," he said grimly.

Bert told the story of the Shoppers' Service, and for the second time that day brought the agreement from his pocket. His father, seeming to read it at a glance, folded it and threw it on the table.

"Another clerk to hire and break in just when I've got one trained," he said bitterly. "Do you realize that this takes Sam away from me?"

"I know it now."

"That means you didn't think of it at first?"

"No, sir; I didn't think of it until to-day."

"I suppose I should thank you for thinking of it at all. There's just one thing I want to know. Whose plan was this, yours or Sam's?"

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