ne? D' y' like
it?"

Grandpa did, for he was circling Johnnie, cackling with excitement. "Oh,
go fetch Mother!" he pleaded. "Go fetch Mother!--Oh, Mother, hurry up!
Come and see Johnnie!"

The Father walked in circles too, exclaiming and admiring. "It can't be
a certain little lad who lives in the Barber flat," he puzzled. "So who
can it be? No, I don't know this small soldier, and I'll thank ye if
ye'll introduce me!"

"Oh," answered Johnnie, "I ain't 'zac'ly sure I'm myself! Oh, Father
Pat, isn't it wonderful?--and I know I've got it 'cause I can take hold
of it, and _smell_ it! Oh, my goodness!" A feeling possessed him which
he had never had before--a feeling of pride in his personal appearance.
With it came a sense of self-respect. "And _I_ seem t' be new, and
clean, and fine," he added, "jus' like the clothes!"

"Ye're a wee gentleman!" asserted the Father; "--a soldier and a
gentleman!" And he saluted Johnnie.

Johnnie returned the salute--twice! Whereupon Grandpa fell to saluting,
and calling out commands in his quavering old voice, and trying to stand
upon his slippered feet.

In the midst of all the uproar, "Oh, One-Eye! One-Eye! One-Eye!" For
here, piling one happiness upon another, here was the cowboy, staggering
in under the weight of a huge, ice-cold watermelon.

"That's my name!" returned the Westerner, grinning. "But y' better take
the eggs outen my pockets 'fore ye grab me like that. Y' know eggs can
bust."

When the eggs were rescued, along with a whole pound of butter, Johnnie
saluted One-Eye. Next, he held out his hand. "Oh, I--I think you're
awful good," he declared (he had thought up this much of his speech the
night before on the roof).

One-Eye waved him away as if he were a fly, and said "Bosh!" a great
many times as Johnnie tried to continue. Finally, to change the subject,
the cowboy broke into that sad song about his mother, which stopped any
further attempt to thank him.

"I'll tell y' what," he declared when Johnnie's mind was at last
completely diverted from his polite intention; "they's jes' one thing
shy. Yeppie, one. What y' need now is a nice, fine, close hair cut."

"At a--at a barber's?" Johnnie asked, already guessing the answer.

"Come along!"

"Oh, One-Eye!" gasped Johnnie. (Oh, the glory of going out in the
uniform! and with the cowboy! And how would he ever be able to take the
new suit off!) "But if I wear it out, and _he_ sees me, and----"

One-Eye was at the