"Washrags, washrags."

He jammed the offending gifts into his pocket, and sought to change the subject.

"Come on, Silvey, let's see that big tree of yours." So they stamped up the Silvey front steps and into the house.

"There," said Bill, pointing proudly at the family fir.

John gave one disgusted glance. "That? Why that's set on a little table! Wouldn't come near the ceiling if it was on the floor. Come down to my house and I'll show you a real tree."

They left the Silvey house noisily.

"Beat you down to John's," Perry shouted as they stood on the front walk. Away they went, puffing like little steam engines, in the cold air. A moment later, they stood admiringly in the Fletcher hall.

"Now, isn't our tree bigger'n yours?"

Silvey admitted that it was, thus adding the final restoring touches to John's complacency. Then they staged an impromptu Punch and Judy show and played with the other toys until Mrs. Fletcher, beaming in spite of perspiration, came into the room.

"The turkey's most done, John, so the boys had better go home now. They can come back at five to see the tree lighted, if they wish."

Would they care to? You just bet they would!

The front door slammed behind them, and John went out to the kitchen to nibble at bits of celery, sample the cranberry sauce, and in other ways annoy his busy mother until she turned on him despairingly.

"For heaven's sake, John, go into the parlor and read one of your new books until dinner's ready if you can't be quiet."

By five in the afternoon, he was so thoroughly surfeited with the season's delights, that he had barely enough energy to stand in the window and peer into the lighted area around the street lamp as he watched for his guests; for to bountiful helpings of turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, dressing, and a quarter of one of his mother's delicious plum puddings had been added cornucopia after cornucopia of candy, until his stomach, for once in his life, caused misgivings as to its food capacity.

Perry Alford came punctual to the minute, and shortly thereafter Red Brown, Sid DuPree, Silvey, and Skinny Mosher. Mrs. Fletcher had made use of her telephone to make the gathering a little more of a party for John than he had anticipated.

Another display of the presents followed, while his father and mother stood in the parlor doorway and beamed down upon the youngsters. When the excitement had died away somewhat, Silvey spoke up.

"Let's have a Punch and Judy show now, fellows."

"Come on, dad," added John. "You can do it best."

So for the second time that day, the room formed the theater for that ancient, comic tragedy. But as the devil popped up on the shaky little stage to make an end to Punch, there came a cry of protest from the audience who were squatting breathlessly on the floor.

"Oh, not yet, not yet. Please, not yet."

So Punch triumphed in his fight with the little red-faced imp, and the play went forward through a new and altogether delightful chapter of the Punch family's existence. Amid the laughter which followed its conclusion, John disappeared silently and came back into the room with a box of tapers.

"Now, daddy, light the tree."

Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher obeyed. Candle after candle on the tinselled branches sprang into life until the fir stood in a flickering blaze of glory while the boys stood back and watched with a feeling akin to awe at the beauty of it. At a propitious moment, he reached carefully between the waving lights and brought out snap crackers and little tin horns from the branches. There was one of a kind for each excited guest.

"Wish there were girls," said Perry to Red, as they tugged at their respective ends of a snapper. "Then it's more fun. They always act 'fraid cat, and scream when it goes off." He unrolled the little cylinder of paper which had been concealed in the foil wrapping. "My hat's pink. What's yours?"

Cornucopias came next, four to a boy. They donned their hats, and munched candy after candy silently while the candles burned low. At last Mr. Fletcher clapped his hands.

"Form in line and march into the dining-room and back by the tree, five times, and blow hard as you can on your horns!"

The procession started. Passers-by on the sidewalk stopped and looked in through the lighted window to see the cause of the disturbance. A flame sputtered as it burned perilously near a resinous twig.

"Halt!" called Mr. Fletcher. "Everybody blow!"

The lower flames vanished two and three at a time. Those higher up followed more slowly. At last but one flickering beacon at the top of the tree remained to defy all the boys' efforts. John's father watched in amusement, then gathered him up in his arms.

"Now, hard!" And the last candle went out.

Mrs. Fletcher suggested "Hot potatoes," and the minutes sped joyously past until the telephone rang.

"Tell Perry to come home for supper," was the message. That youngster slipped on his overcoat sulkily.

"Wish'd there wasn't any old telephones," he snapped as he opened the door.

His departure was a signal for a lull in the festivities. Mrs. DuPree sent a servant over for Sid, and the other boys followed shortly, leaving the family to watch in the darkness beside the parlor grate. Mrs. Fletcher broke the silence.

"It's been a beautiful Christmas," she said softly. "A beautiful Christmas."

John nodded contentedly from his father's knee. Again, the only sound to be heard in the room was the soft whick-whicker of the burning coal as the flames licked the chimney breast, or the occasional rustle of falling ash. Suddenly footsteps pounded up on the porch and the bell rang loudly. John opened the door, and Silvey came panting into the hallway with skates in one eager hand.

"Come on over to the lagoon with me," he shouted breathlessly. John looked at his mother.

"How about your supper?"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Hadn't he eaten enough candy for a dozen suppers? "Please let me go, Mother," he concluded. "Please. It's Christmas!"

There was no resisting such a plea. He flew upstairs to resurrect his last year's skates from the attic, and was back in a moment for his mittens and stocking cap. The door slammed as the two dogtrotted it down the street. At the corner, John slackened speed.

"Are you sure there's skating, Bill?" he asked. Never, so far back as he could remember, had the ice been in condition for the sport by December.

Silvey nodded emphatically. "Saw six fellows go by the house with skates on their shoulders. So I asked 'em."

They left the park gravel path, now flanked on either side by leafless shrubbery, and struck out over the hard macadam of the road. As they reached the board walk leading to the warming house on the boat landing, John strained his eyes eagerly ahead.

"There is, oh, there is," he cried as the long tile roof by the boat house came in sight. "I can see 'em."

They spurted and pulled up at the skating house doors. A moment later they were in the crowded, brightly lighted interior. Directly beneath the apex of the roof, ran a lunch counter which divided the place into a section for men, and another for women, escorted or not, as the case might be. Long, wooden benches ran along each wall, all filled with a constantly shifting occupancy. John seized the first available seat and drew on his skates. A stamping on the hacked, wooden floor to make sure that the steel runners were locked firmly, a wobbly interval as he stepped out and sought control of his ankles, a momentary pause on the steps, and he was out on the ice, with Silvey following. They executed a few maneuvers and sat down on the boat landing.

"Ice is great," said Bill, as he tightened a skate strap. "Doesn't it feel funny, though?"

John nodded and stood up again. "Beat you around the island," he challenged.

No sooner said than they were off. Silvey's new skates cut the ice cleanly at every stroke, while his chum's duller pair skidded and slid now and then as he gained headway. Along the narrowing, west pond, past helpless beginners whose efforts not to appear ridiculous made them doubly so, past staid business men, past arm-linked couples from the university dormitories, and out on the thirty-foot path of scraped ice which encircled the island. There Silvey slowed up.

"Getting bumpy," he cautioned. "Watch out!"

The warning came too late. John's skate sank to his shoe sole in a crack and sent him sprawling. He stood up shakily and rubbed a bruised knee.

"First fall, first fall," yelled Bill as he turned back. "Hurt much?"

John shook his head and started off again bravely. They got into the swing of it as they swept under the second island bridge and out on the last lap of the course. Faster and faster their legs flew over the ice as they dodged cracks with more certainty. Skater after skater was left behind, often by a hair's-breadth margin of safety which evoked half-heard protests as they skimmed on.

"Almost there," shouted Bill as he increased his efforts to the utmost.

"Tie," yelled John as he shot over and grabbed an arch of the northern bridge to stop his momentum. "Look at the crowd. What's happened?"

They skated slowly over and around until they found a thin space in the human circle which allowed them a view of proceedings.

"Fancy skaters," whispered Bill. "Look at him write his name on the ice."

"And the medals on his sweater. Gee, don't you wish you were him?"

A voice broke in on them.

"Scatter there, scatter." The policeman forced his way to the center. "You're blocking the way to the skating house. Keep moving!"

In obedience to the majesty of the law, the boys skated off and found a secluded, smooth bit of ice nearer shore. There, John tried to cut a shaky "J" on the ice and fell over backwards. Shortly afterward, Silvey met with a similar fate, and the boys looked at each other despondently. Both pairs of ankles were aching badly from the unaccustomed exercise, but neither wanted to admit it. Silvey loosened one of his skate straps.

"Got your watch, John?"

It showed a quarter past nine. "Our mothers'll be waiting for us," he said. Thus a way to honorable retreat was found.

They stamped stiffly back to the warming house and took off their skates. John held his numbed fingers as near to the glowing coal stove in the center of the room as he dared, while Bill studied the age-stained menu over the lunch counter.

"My treat," he said, as he drew a bright half-dollar from his pocket. "What'll you have?"

John ordered his favorite, mince pie; his host, a cut of half-baked apple. They washed the food down with a glass of cider apiece, and stumbled out on the board walk toward home.

"Feel's funny, walking after you've had skates on," John commented as they trudged along the dark path. Silvey spoke up, "Say, John."

"Yes?"

"You know Sid DuPree?"

He nodded.

"Well, he's trying to cut you out with Louise. Saw her in the corner drug store with him, drinking ice cream sodas."

John's foot caught in a piece of loosened turf at the edge of the gravel walk. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he had heard.

"Aren't mad because I told you, are you?"

"No."

His paper route had kept him too busy to give the attention due her, but if Louise were inclined to succumb to the blandishments of ten-cent sodas at a drug store, he was glad to know it. Such incidents might result in disaster for the great plan if allowed to run unhindered.

"Feel's like a thaw," said Bill, trying to rouse his chum from the revery into which his announcement had plunged him.

Again John nodded. Indeed there was a curious softness in the air. Perhaps the promise of a long skating season was to prove false after all. But he must see Louise, the very moment of her return. Then Sid had better watch out.

He was at his front steps before he realized it.

"Good night," called Silvey, as he turned for home.

"Good night," replied John a trifle wearily. And with the same feeling of morose taciturnity, a strange mood on this of all nights, he undressed and crept into bed.

IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY

But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs. Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."

Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains, and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too new as yet to be anything but spotless, which in places had drifted across the rows of rails. Along the street, each smoke-tinged roof and window ledge had a share of the rapidly deepening coverlet which sped from the leaden clouds to mask the gray, unlovely earth.

John drew on his knickerbockers hurriedly. No time for a peep at one of his new books now. Not only was the snow a thing of beauty, but it offered certain revenue if he and Bill appeared with their shovels before competition became too keen. So he appeared in the dining-room with surprising promptness.

"Sick, John?" asked his mother with gentle sarcasm, as he sat down to breakfast.

He shook his head as he gulped down spoonful after spoonful of the steaming oatmeal. Now and then he glanced out of the window at the walks and porches of the street. They were still untouched, but there was need of haste.

"Never mind the potatoes, Mother," he said, as he hurried to the coat closet for his wraps. "I'm going shovelling."

He ran down into the basement and was out and down the street with the wooden shovel over his shoulder before Mrs. Fletcher realized that he had escaped. She hailed him back.

"How about our walk, son?" she asked, as she stood in the doorway.

He shook his head in protest. "I don't get paid for that. Bill and I'll do it when we get through."

"Not much!" There was decision in his mother's tones. "That means it won't be cleaned before noon."

"Aw-w-w, Mother!"

The door closed and put a stop to further parleying. He stood by the lamppost, undecided as to which course to pursue. Should he walk boldly off and take the consequences, or was discretion the better part of valor after all? Still, when a fellow's mother wanted something done, it was useless to try to evade the task, and he was just beginning to realize it.

He set to work. Before long the cheerful scraping of the wooden shovel against the pavement restored his good humor. His face became flushed, and he stopped a moment to pull his stocking cap back from his hot forehead, for the exercise was making his blood circulate rapidly. The long walk which led to the back door could be skipped, and the porch railings left snow-capped as they were, for his aim was to fulfill the barest letter of his orders before Mrs. Fletcher looked out of the window.

Five minutes later, he knocked the snow from his shovel, and sneaked up the street, slipping now and then as his feet struck concealed ice on the walk, and once he fell sideways into a soft drift. As he walked up the Silvey steps, a snowball hit him on the leg, and another sped past his nose. He turned to find Bill on the lawn with a snowball in one hand.

"Surrender," came the call.

John dropped his shovel to the floor and seized a handful of snow.

"Going to fight or get snow jobs with me?" he asked, as he pounded the mass into an uneven sphere.

For an answer, his chum dropped his missile and ran around to the back yard, to reappear with his own shovel. He pointed down the street. Two members of the unemployed were making the snow fly at the DuPree's with an earnestness which boded ill for their youthful competitors.

"Let's try Southern Avenue," said John. "Perhaps there won't be anyone there."

No sooner said than done. But as they rounded the corner, they found that three of the "Jeffersons" had organized an expedition of their own and were cleaning the walk and porch of the house nearest the corner. Their leader motioned to Bill.

"Go on back home, or we'll smash your faces in."

John promptly stuck out his tongue. "They can't fight," he said scornfully, "and two of 'em are 'fraid cats. Let's try the big yellow house, Bill."

With a glance back at the foe, they ran up the steps and rang the bell persistently until a becapped, flustered servant opened the door.

"Ask the missis if she wants the walk cleaned?" said Silvey, who usually handled the negotiations for work.

Scraps of conversation floated down to the boys from the upper regions whence the girl had disappeared with the message. Presently she came to the head of the stairs and called down to them, "How much you want?"

Bill made a mental inventory of the appearance of the grounds as the boys had approached the house. "Quarter," he said promptly.

"Missis, she say 'all right,'" said the maid.

The boys stamped out of the hallway and set to work with a will. Silvey began at one end of the broad veranda floor, while John made the snow fly from the railings and porch posts. Next came the steps, and the walk leading down the lawn.

"This won't take long," said John optimistically.

He stooped to fix a shoelace which had become untied. Silvey yielded to temptation and gave him a shove into the heaped snow, to have him rise angrily and dig the half-thawed slush from between his neck and collar. Then he sprang at his partner and they went sprawling again, but this time, Bill was the underdog. The two boys struggled for a while until John sat heavily on his foe's stomach, and pinioned the resistant arms with his knees. Then the fun began. "Going to be good?"

Silvey looked desperately up at the handful of snow held high above his head.

"Going to be good?"

"Look, here, Fletch—don't you wash my face, don't you—"

"Going to be good?" asked John again.

His answer was a wrench for freedom. Thud, came a soft mass down on Bill's nose and open mouth. He spluttered and rolled over desperately, trying to throw John from his vantage point. The front door creaked, and an alien voice called,

"What's the matter, you boys? Ain't you ever going to get finished?"

They rose sheepishly to find the servant smiling down at them from the doorway.

"Missis says, 'hurry up,'" she cautioned them.

Silvey picked up his shovel and began to make the snow fly industriously. Presently the fit of ardor wore off, and he stared thoughtfully at the long stretch of walk which still remained between the front porch and the back yard.

"How much did I say we'd do this for?" he asked.

"Quarter," said John, as he leaned on his shovel handle.

"Wished I'd made it thirty-five cents!"

Foot by foot, they cleared a path well around by the side of the house. The milkman, the butcher, and the gas inspector had each left heavy footmarks which were difficult to remove and made progress slow. At the rear steps, a huge drift met their gaze, and Silvey stretched his aching arms.

"What'd we say we'd do this for?" he asked again.

"Quarter."

"Wished I'd said half a dollar. There's a walk on the other side, too."

No skylarking now. Their muscles ached too much from the exercise to waste their energy in other channels. When the cut through the drift had been made, and the back porch and basement walk freed of the covering, Bill leaned his shovel against a clothes-line post, and surveyed the result of their labors malevolently.

"Next time we do this, John," he snapped emphatically, "we'll charge a whole dollar!"

But the mischief had been done. By the time they had been paid the well-earned quarter, not a house near them offered prospect of employment. And at the far end of the street, the "Jeffersons" were making a last reconnoissance before deserting the neighborhood for more fruitful fields of labor.

"Now see what you did when you shoved me into the snow," said John ruefully.

"Well, you didn't have to wash my face," retorted Bill. Secretly he was not sorry that the work was at an end. "Get your new sled and we'll go hitching. Beat you over to our street."

They dashed up the nearest private walk into a residential back yard, and dropped their shovels over the back fence. John wedged one foot between a telegraph pole and a picket, and drew himself up.

"Come on, Sil."

Silvey braced himself for the spring. A rear window in the house creaked open and a woman's head appeared.

"What are you boys doing?" called the shrill voice. They dropped over into the other yard, and John started to run.

"She's in curl papers," said Bill. "She won't chase us. Let's fix her."

"I'll call the police if you go through again," she persisted as the boys filled their hands with snow. John gave a few finishing pats to his missile.

"How'd you like to have her for a mother?" he asked his chum, as he drew his arm back for the assault.

A projectile broke against the window sash and showered snow fragments upon the untidy hair. A second went a serene way through the opening and dissolved in a blot of hissing water on the kitchen stove. The frame slammed to with a violence which threatened destruction to the window glass, and John grabbed his shovel with an exultant yell.

"Now run like the dickens!"

They parted at the Silveys'. John continued on a dogtrot towards home, and a moment later was pestering Mrs. Fletcher at her work in the kitchen.

"Where's some rope, Mother?"

She looked from the pile of napkins on the ironing board. "What do you want it for, son?"

"My sled."

She walked over to a box behind the kitchen gas range and drew out a three-foot length. "Will this do?"

"No. Got to be lots longer than that."

"You're not going hitching, are you?"

He shook his head dubiously.

"Now, John! There have been little boys killed because wagons ran over them when their ropes broke and they couldn't get out of the way!"

He evaded his mother's eye and sneaked from the house. Silvey was waiting for him impatiently on the front walk.

"Where's the line?" he asked.

"Can't go," complained John. "She won't let me."

"Aw, come on. We'll go over to Southern Avenue and she won't know a thing about it. I'll get you a rope from our house."

His feeble scruples vanished. A five-minute stop at the Silveys sufficed to make the necessary alterations in John's equipment. Bill brought out his own sled, and they started for the corner. In front of the grocery store, they found Pete, the wagon boy, placing the last of the noon orders in his cart.

"Give us a hitch," they begged.

He nodded a cheery consent. "But hurry. These have got to be delivered in time for dinner."

The boys ran the ropes rapidly around the rear axle and jumped on the sleds. A shout, a sudden jerk, and they were off, swinging around the corner on Southern Avenue with a momentum which shot them far to one side. John drew a breath of relief, for it was his first experience at the sport. Bill looked up from between the sled runners and grinned.

Along they sped. The smooth steel slid easily now over the closely packed snow in the wagon ruts, now over bumps which forced involuntary grunts from between their lips. As the horse increased his pace they tightened their grasp on the sled hand-holes.

"Whoa," shouted Pete. The wagon stopped abruptly as he reached back into the body for a package, and the sleds shot under the wagon almost up to the horse's hoofs, before the boys could find a holding place in the hard snow for their toes.

John dragged his sled out, and lay back on it while he waited for Pete to reappear. The sun had pierced the heavy clouds, and dazzled the eyes of the neighborhood with glistening reflections on the white, unsullied lawns and doorsteps. On the more exposed portions of the closely packed house roofs, the melting snow formed long, dagger-like icicles which hung from the eaves, or clustered thickly around drain pipes and gutters. The heel-packed lumps which had defied the efforts of the wooden shovels to remove them from the cement walks showed dark, water-marked edges under the influence of the warming rays. Near him in the street, a flock of hungry sparrows fought boldly over a bit of vegetable which had fallen from a passing fruit vender's cart, and in the clear, dancing air was a touch of elixir which set his pulses to throbbing.

"Yes," he said, although Silvey had asked no question, "it's just peachy."

"Isn't it?" acquiesced Bill. "And your mother's afraid you'll get hurt, doing it."

The smile vanished. What if Mrs. Fletcher should find out! The joys of the sport, sweeter through their illegality, were not sufficient to prevent a sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of such a catastrophe.

There came a scurry of footsteps on the walk close by him, another caution from Pete and his sled rope tightened again. They drove from one street to another, working ever westward until the gray-stone, red-roofed buildings of the university were behind them. When but a package of steak, bread, or a similar trifle was to be delivered, John or Bill dashed around to the back porch or through a basement flat areaway, while the driver sat and smoked in state on his seat. Thus the arrangement was of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.

At last they halted before a dingy, eight-flat apartment building. Pete carried the last, and heaviest, consignment of edibles in to its owner and returned, a moment later, to stand on the curbing with a kindly smile on his heavy-featured face.

"Now, boys," he said, as he drew his cap down over his ears and forehead until the peak nearly met his black, bushy brows, "hang on tight, and I'll give you a real ride back."

A flick at the ribs of the fat, easy-going horse, and the two sleds were flying homeward. The depressions and hoof marks in the snow flew between the runners at a speed which dizzied their owners. Bits of ice, dislodged by the horse's hoofs, flew up and struck the boys' faces stinging blows. Past the university buildings, past the school which now stood empty and deserted because of the Christmas holidays, past impatient pedestrians on the street corners, and over to Southern Avenue where Pete turned in abruptly to the alley entrance of the grocery store. Silvey screamed a warning as his sled, running straight ahead, felt the tug of the tow rope, and skidded in a wide circle over the rough, uneven snow. John tried to save himself from a similar fate, but he had delayed too long. Straight for a huge snow bank, the two sleds headed, struck the curbing, and capsized with their owners underneath.

John rose shakily with an uncertain smile on his lips. His chum dug some snow from his ears and ran forward to unhitch the sleds. The grocer's clock showed a quarter after twelve, so they started for the home street. As they parted, John held up a detaining hand.

HE CRUSHES AND HUMILIATES A RIVAL

Sid, with new skates glistening at his side, was bound for the park lagoon when John ran across the street and stopped him.

"Come along?" asked Sid amicably. John shook his head.

"I want to talk to you," said he. "Bill says you're trying to cut me out with Louise. It's got to stop."

"What's he know about it?" asked the culprit defiantly.

"And Louise told me you'd taken her up to the drug store."

Sid shrugged his shoulders. "Guess I've a right to. What have you got to say about it?"

"Well," said John slowly, "She's my girl—"

Sid sneered.

"And we're going to get married on the money from the paper route when I grow up and—"

"Pooh!" Sid laughed unpleasantly. "Go ahead and save your money. I don't care. I'm spending mine—on her—and you can't stop me either."

Money, money, money! All he was hearing these days was about spending, not saving it, and Sid's words, as had his lady's, riled him not a little.

"I'm going to take her out, too," he shot back. "Won't be a cheap thing like sodas, either. We're going to the theater, we are, and then she'll promise not to speak to you any more. If she won't, I'll punch your face in, first time I catch you."

"Theater!" said Sid, so impressed that the concluding threat passed unheeded.

"Going to buy the tickets, this afternoon," John boasted. "Main floor seats at the 'Home'—seventy-five cents each! Don't you wish you were going?"

Sid's skates slipped from his shoulder into the snow. He picked them up and looked at John uncertainly.

"That'll cost a lot of money, won't it?" he asked.

"Most two dollars," magnificently.

"Let's take her together, then. I'll pay half the carfare and the seats."

John thought a moment. The plan possessed certain advantages. He would be able to observe how Louise acted with Sid, for one; and if he didn't consent, that persistent rival would take her later, anyway, which would be a thousand times worse. Besides, the prospect of two hard-earned dollars being frittered away for an evening's entertainment had been far from pleasing.

"The tickets are for a week from Saturday," he said slowly. "Want me to get you one?"

Sid nodded and dug into his pocket for a handful of Christmas change. He passed over a dollar and twelve cents to John, and left for the lagoon.

Half a dozen times as the street car bounced westward over the uneven track, John decided to tell Sid that, after all, the entertainment was for but two. He would probably spoil all the fun, anyway, and then the evening would be a total failure. He was still undecided when he stepped up to the tawdry box office with its photographs of local theatrical stars.

"How many?" asked the man at the little window.

John drew out a coin from his pocket. Heads, Sid joined them; tails, he should be Louise's sole escort. Heads it was. The fates had willed it; let the outcome be for good or ill.

When he told of the arrangement at the family supper table, that evening, his parents choked.

"I suppose," said Mr. Fletcher, his voice still shaking with laughter, "that you'll sit, one on each side of the lady, and glare because she took the last piece of candy from the other fellow's box."

Candy? Why, of course. The heroine of each of the novels he had read, was always receiving toothsome dainties and showers of roses from her many admirers. But he couldn't afford both methods of expressing his devotion, and candy alone would have to do. This taking your best girl to a show promised to be far more expensive than he had thought.

Need it be said that his shoes were veritable ebony mirrors, that eventful evening? Or that his ears were clean, even to the very recesses under the lobes? And when such a thing occurs, you may be sure that Solomon in all his glory was arrayed no more immaculately than that small boy.

He presented himself promptly at the door of the Martin flat at half-past seven. Louise was in her room while Mrs. Martin added the finishing touches to the party dress which she was wearing in honor of the occasion, so he shoved the two-pound box of dipped caramels, ordered in spite of paternal objections, into his overcoat pocket and sat down in the big parlor rocker to wait.

Shortly thereafter, Sid appeared with a tissue-wrapped bouquet of roses in his hand. "For Louise," he told Mrs. Martin.

John glared at him stolidly, and regretted his choice of candy. It would have taken a little of that confident smile away, if his rival had found himself antedated by a gift of a similar nature.

A quarter of an hour later found them bouncing along over the same car line which John had used on the ticket quest. The conveyance was poorly heated, but the children were too excited to notice the cold. Louise was wearing two of the roses on her frock, and Sid was in high spirits accordingly.

"Ever been out West, Louise?" he asked with a side glance at John. The lady shook her head.

"I was, all last vacation—real ranch, real cowboys. Used to take pony rides every day."

John sketched a caricature on the frosty window pane and sulked in silence. Why didn't his folks make enough money to take him on such summer jaunts? Then he wouldn't have to sit like a dummy and listen to his rival out-talk him with the one girl he cared anything about.

"And walk?" continued Sid, secure in his romancing, now that he knew that neither of his auditors had been beyond the Mississippi. "Why, the air's so fine that you can walk ever so far without feeling tired. Breakfast at the ranch was at seven, and once, I walked twenty miles just to get up an appetite for it."

"That's nothing," John snapped moodily. "I walked thirty miles before breakfast, once, too. It was right here in the city."

"What?" gasped Sid, scarcely believing his ears.

"Yes," assented John cheerfully. "It was in the afternoon before, but that didn't make any difference. It was before breakfast, wastn't it?"

Louise giggled. Sid kicked against the wicker seat cushion in front of him and was silent. John rubbed a clear spot on the frost-etched car window and peered into the outer darkness.

"Next block's ours," he grinned, still elated at the success of his thrust. "Come on, Louise."

They scrambled wildly for the door. Sid was the first in the street and helped the lady down from the high car-step, while John drew the tickets from his coat pocket and led the way to the brilliantly lighted theater lobby. Louise's eyes glistened with excitement as the trio stopped to look at the posters beside the doorway.

"Martha, the Milliner's Girl," Sid read slowly from the huge letters at the top of the bulletin board.

"Peach of a show," John commented, as they walked past the line of people waiting their turn at the box office. "Six folks killed, and shooting and everything. I asked the man when I bought the seats."

A uniformed usher led them impressively to their places and presented them with programs. John stooped over his fiancée and helped her off with her coat as he leered at Sid. That gentleman leaned easily back in the upholstered theater chair.

"Nice seats," he remarked with a touch of condescension. "A little near the stage [the words had been Mrs. DuPree's, once upon a time], but they'll do."

"I like 'em," John snapped angrily. Louise acquiesced. Sid scowled and fell back upon the wild and woolly West as a means of maintaining the conversational upper hand.

"Once I went hunting, last summer"—he began. John glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he brought his voluble rival along?—"hunting for bear," continued the narrator. "Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms—"

"Palms don't grow out West," John interrupted savagely.

"Yes, they do."

"Geogerfy says they don't."

"This was a part the geogerfies don't know anything about," serenely. "Ever been out there?"

"No," reluctantly.

"Then keep quiet. I have. Well, there were the palms and—"

Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.

"Oh," exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties and threw the paper on the floor.

"Have some?" he asked as he lifted the cover.

The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.