making money was the selling of home-made hominy to the restaurants up
in town.

* * * * *

I found him squatted on the bare floor, with no furniture in the room.
He had a couple of dingy wash-boilers which he had picked up from the
big garbage-dump near the race-track.

Day in, day out, I spent my time with this tramp, listening to his
stories of the pleasures and adventures of tramp-life.

I see him still, wiping his nose on his ragged coat-sleeve as he
vociferates....

When one day he disappeared, leaving boilers, hominy and all, behind, I
missed his yarns as much as my grandmother missed her unpaid rent.

* * * * *

It appears that at this time my grandfather had a manufacturing plant
for the terra cotta invention he had stolen from his comrade-in-arms, in
Virginia somewhere, and that, during all these years, he had had Landon
working with him,--and now word had come to us that Landon was leaving
for Mornington again.

My grandmother was mad about him, her youngest ... always spoke of him
as "her baby" ... informed me again and again that he was the most
accomplished, the handsomest man the Gregory family had ever produced.

* * * * *

Landon arrived. He walked up to the front porch from the road. He came
in with a long, free stride ... he gave an eager, boyish laugh ... he
plumped down his big, bulged-to-bursting grip with a bang.

"Hello, Ma!... hello, Millie!... well, well, so this is Duncan's kid?...
how big he's grown!"

Landon's fine, even, white teeth gleamed a smile at me.

Granma couldn't say a word ... she just looked at him ... and looked at
him ... and looked at him ... after a long while she began saying his
name over and over again....

"Landon, Landon, Landon,"--holding him close.

Landon began living with us regularly as one of the family. He went to
work in the steel mills, and was energetic and tireless when he worked,
which he did, enough to pay his way and not be a burden on others. He
performed the hardest kinds of labour in the mills.

But often he laid off for long stretches at a time and travelled about
with a wild gang of young men and women, attending dances, drinking,
gambling.

Nothing seemed to hurt him, he was so strong.

At most of the drinking bouts, where the object was to see who could
take down the most beer, Landon would win by drinking all he could
hold, then step