home
with you."

Dickie went to the desk and signed his name. The stranger signed
his--Augustus Lorrimer. The librarian stamped a bit of cardboard and
stuck it into the fat volume. She handed it to Dickie wearily.

"Thank _you_, ma'am," he said with such respectful fervor that she looked
up at him and smiled.

"Now, where's your diggings," asked Lorrimer, who had taken no hints
about asking questions, "east or west?" He was a newspaper reporter.

"Would you be carin' to walk home with me?" asked Dickie. There was a
great deal of dignity in his tone, more in his carriage.

"Yes. I'd be caring to! Lead on, Martian!" And Lorrimer felt, after
he said that, that he was a vulgarian--a long-forgotten sensation.
"In Mars," he commented to himself, "this young man was some kind of
a prince."

"What do you look over your shoulder that way for, Dick?" he asked aloud,
a few blocks on their way. "Scared the police will take away your book?"

Dickie blinked at him with a startled air. "Did I? I reckon a feller
gets into queer ways when he's alone a whole lot. I get kind of feelin'
like somebody was following me in this town--so many folks goin' to and
fro does it to me most likely."

"Yes, a fellow does get into queer ways when he's alone a whole lot,"
said Lorrimer slowly. His mind went back a dozen years to his own first
winter in New York. He looked with keenness at Dickie's face. It was a
curiously charming face, he thought, but it was tight-knit with a
harried, struggling sort of look, and this in spite of its quaint
detachment.

"Know any one in this city?"

"No, sir, not rightly. I've made acquaintance with some of the waiters.
They've asked me to join a club. But I haven't got the cash."

"What pay do you draw?"

Dickie named a sum.

"Not much, eh? But you've got your tips."

"Yes, sir. I pay my board with my pay and live on the tips."

"Must be uncertain kind of living! Where do you live, anyway?
What? Here?"

They had crossed Washington Square and were entering a tall studio
building to the south and east. Dickie climbed lightly up the stairs.
Lorrimer followed with a feeling of bewilderment. On the top landing,
dimly lighted, Dickie unlocked a door and stood aside.

"Just step in and look up," he said, "afore I light the light. You'll
see something."

Lorrimer obeyed. A swarm of golden bees glimmered before his eyes.

"Stars," said Dickie. "Down below you wouldn't hardly know you had 'em,
would y