written
that day would bring him sixty dollars--two months' wages on the sea!

On Friday night he finished the serial, twenty-one thousand words long.
At two cents a word, he calculated, that would bring him four hundred and
twenty dollars. Not a bad week's work. It was more money than he had
ever possessed at one time. He did not know how he could spend it all.
He had tapped a gold mine. Where this came from he could always get
more. He planned to buy some more clothes, to subscribe to many
magazines, and to buy dozens of reference books that at present he was
compelled to go to the library to consult. And still there was a large
portion of the four hundred and twenty dollars unspent. This worried him
until the thought came to him of hiring a servant for Gertrude and of
buying a bicycle for Marion.

He mailed the bulky manuscript to The Youth's Companion, and on Saturday
afternoon, after having planned an article on pearl-diving, he went to
see Ruth. He had telephoned, and she went herself to greet him at the
door. The old familiar blaze of health rushed out from him and struck
her like a blow. It seemed to enter into her body and course through her
veins in a liquid glow, and to set her quivering with its imparted
strength. He flushed warmly as he took her hand and looked into her blue
eyes, but the fresh bronze of eight months of sun hid the flush, though
it did not protect the neck from the gnawing chafe of the stiff collar.
She noted the red line of it with amusement which quickly vanished as she
glanced at his clothes. They really fitted him,--it was his first made-
to-order suit,--and he seemed slimmer and better modelled. In addition,
his cloth cap had been replaced by a soft hat, which she commanded him to
put on and then complimented him on his appearance. She did not remember
when she had felt so happy. This change in him was her handiwork, and
she was proud of it and fired with ambition further to help him.

But the most radical change of all, and the one that pleased her most,
was the change in his speech. Not only did he speak more correctly, but
he spoke more easily, and there were many new words in his vocabulary.
When he grew excited or enthusiastic, however, he dropped back into the
old slurring and the dropping of final consonants. Also, there was an
awkward hesitancy, at times, as he essayed the new words he had learned.
On the other hand, along with his ease of expression, he displ