r
corners. There were any number of entrances, too; and, of course, fire
escapes.

It suited him finely. On one side of this old palace--for he was sure it
could be nothing short of a palace--was a flight of steps which led up
to a small door. This entrance was an inconspicuous one, which could not
be said of the several porticoed entrances. Beside the steps, in the
angle made by the meeting of the wall with them, was conveniently set a
small, pine box. Johnnie had hunted a vacant building with the intention
of entering it. But now he decided to read first, and steal into the
palace later, under cover of the dark. Down he sat upon the box, out of
the way of a breeze that was wafting a trifle too freshly through the
street.

One by one he took out the three books he had just bought, this in
order to give them a closer scrutiny than the store had afforded him;
and to start with he met that "glorious company, the flower of men," who
made up the Table Round, and who, if the colored pictures of them were
to be believed, made his mounted policeman of an hour before seem a
sorry figure. And their names were as splendid as their
photographs--Launcelot, and Gawain, Gareth and Tristram and Galahad.
Remembering that he was called Johnnie, he felt quite sick.

When, after poring over the half-dozen illustrations, he was forced to
the conclusion that nothing could surpass the knights of King Arthur, he
opened _The Last of the Mohicans_ and found himself captured, heart and
soul, by the even more enticing Uncas and his fellows, superb bronze
creatures, painted and feathered, and waving tomahawks that far outshone
any blunt lance.

He had to change his mind again. For bringing himself to tuck away his
Indians and fetch forth _Treasure Island_, he was rewarded by the sight
of a piratical crew who easily surpassed even the redmen. The fiercest
of these pirates, a gentleman by the name of Long John Silver, was
without question the pick of the lot. To begin with, Mr. Silver
undoubtedly belonged to the New York family of peg legs, which, of
course, brought him nearer than his brother pirates. However, what
especially recommended him was a pistol-filled belt.

"Gee! I'm glad I got mine!" Johnnie declared, since the chief-pirate's
belt was strikingly like the one binding in Big Tom's cast-off clothes;
and he willingly forgot what the strap of leather had done to him in the
past in realizing its wonderful possibilities for the future.