her tiny room, and halted face to face with Johnnie,
from whose strong right hand the stove rag was even then falling. Her
eyes both questioned and challenged him. And the sudden breaking of his
countenance into a radiant grin, at one and at the same time, answered
her--and confessed.

"Johnnie!" she whispered.

He stretched up to her pink ear to answer, for Grandpa was at the table,
still busy over his bowl. "A book," he whispered back, his air that of
one who has seen the dream of a lifetime realized.

"_What?_ What kind of a book? And where'd you get it? Show it to me."

He went into the little closet. When he came out, she went in. And
presently, as she sauntered into the kitchen once more, he plunged past
her and the tiny room received him a second time--all of which was
according to a method they had worked out long ago. He was up-headed,
and his eyes sparkled as he unpinned a towel from under Grandpa's chin
and trundled the wheel chair back from the table. His look said that he
defied all criticism.

She reached for the camera-box. Her manner wholly lacked enthusiasm. "I
guess it's a good story," she conceded kindly. "I heard about it lots
when I was in school. But, my! It's so raggy!"

"Raggy!" scoffed Johnnie. "Huh! I don't care what it _looks_ like!"

When she, too, was gone, he omitted his usual taking of the air at the
window. He even denied himself the pleasure of calling up his four
millionaires and telling them of his good fortune. The main business of
the day was the book. Would Aladdin's order for a palace, complete, be
carried out? Would that ambitious Celestial marry the Princess of his
choice? Johnnie could scarcely wait to know.

Following a course that he had found good these several years past, he
wound the alarm clock a few times and set it to ring sharp at four in
the afternoon--which would give him more than a full hour in which to
wash Grandpa, make the beds and sweep before Big Tom's return. This
done, he opened the book on the table, dug a hand into his tousled mop,
and began to read--to read as he might have drunk if thirst were
torturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book was
to him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it was
a potion that gave him new life.

As the story of stories unfolded itself, step by step, the ragged street
urchin whose father had been a poor tailor, attained to great
heights--to wealth and success and power. Joh