of Barber was, doubtless,
due to the fact that he had seen the giant outmatched and brought to
terms. He hated him still (perhaps even more than ever); yet holding him
in contempt, did not indulge in a single revenge think. He understood
that, with Cis away, the longshoreman needed him as he had never needed
him before. So Barber would not dare to be ugly or cruel again, lest he
lose Johnnie too. "If I followed Cis where'd he be?" the boy asked
himself. "Huh! He better be careful!"

As to Cis, now that he had had a good rest, it was easy for him to see
that this change which had come into her life was a thing to be grateful
for, not a matter to be mourned about. After her trouble with Barber,
she could not stay on in the flat and be happy. Granting this, how
fortunate it was that she could at once marry the man she loved. (And
what a man!)

He saw her in that splendid, imaginary apartment in which he had long
ago installed Mr. Perkins. And was he, John Blake, wishing that she
would stay in a tiny, if beautiful, room without a window?

"Aw, shucks, no!" he cried. "I don't want y' back! I miss y', but I'm
_awful_ glad y'r gone! And I don't mind bein' left here."

He felt hopeful, ambitious, independent.

He rose with a will. He was stiff, just at first, but strong and steady
on his feet. As in the past he had never made a habit of pitying
himself, he did not pity himself now, but took his aches and pains as he
had taken them many a time before, that is, by dismissing them from his
mind. He was hungry. He was eager for his daily wash. He wanted to get
at his morning exercises, and take with them a whiff of the outdoors
coming in at the window. By a glance at his patch of sky he could tell
that this whiff would be pleasant. For how clear and blue was that bit
of Heaven which he counted as a personal belonging! And just across the
area the sun was already beginning to wash all the roofs with its
aureate light.

Three sparrows hailed him from the window ledge, shrilly demanding
crumbs. Crumbs made him think of Mrs. Kukor's stealthy gift. Sure
enough, the yellow bowl held soup. In the soup was spaghetti--the wide,
ribbony, slippery kind he especially liked, coiled about in a broth
which smelled deliciously of garlic. As for the black bread, some
nibbling visitor of the night had helped himself to one corner of it,
and this corner, therefore, went at once to the birds.

"My goodness!" soliloquized Johnnie. "How the mic