s is
sickenin'."

"I never got any away from you," Martin answered uninterestedly. The
breakfast had to be got through somehow.

"Yes, you did, too," the other asserted warmly. "There was Maggie."

"Never had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except that
one night."

"Yes, an' that's just what did it," Jim cried out. "You just danced with
her an' looked at her, an' it was all off. Of course you didn't mean
nothin' by it, but it settled me for keeps. Wouldn't look at me again.
Always askin' about you. She'd have made fast dates enough with you if
you'd wanted to."

"But I didn't want to."

"Wasn't necessary. I was left at the pole." Jim looked at him
admiringly. "How d'ye do it, anyway, Mart?"

"By not carin' about 'em," was the answer.

"You mean makin' b'lieve you don't care about them?" Jim queried eagerly.

Martin considered for a moment, then answered, "Perhaps that will do, but
with me I guess it's different. I never have cared--much. If you can
put it on, it's all right, most likely."

"You should 'a' ben up at Riley's barn last night," Jim announced
inconsequently. "A lot of the fellers put on the gloves. There was a
peach from West Oakland. They called 'm 'The Rat.' Slick as silk. No
one could touch 'm. We was all wishin' you was there. Where was you
anyway?"

"Down in Oakland," Martin replied.

"To the show?"

Martin shoved his plate away and got up.

"Comin' to the dance to-night?" the other called after him.

"No, I think not," he answered.

He went downstairs and out into the street, breathing great breaths of
air. He had been suffocating in that atmosphere, while the apprentice's
chatter had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he
could do to refrain from reaching over and mopping Jim's face in the mush-
plate. The more he had chattered, the more remote had Ruth seemed to
him. How could he, herding with such cattle, ever become worthy of her?
He was appalled at the problem confronting him, weighted down by the
incubus of his working-class station. Everything reached out to hold him
down--his sister, his sister's house and family, Jim the apprentice,
everybody he knew, every tie of life. Existence did not taste good in
his mouth. Up to then he had accepted existence, as he had lived it with
all about him, as a good thing. He had never questioned it, except when
he read books; but then, they were only books, fairy stories of a fa