at the Italian janitress was giving
the dark passage its annual scrub. As he had no wish to exchange words
with her, much preferring the society of the rash, but plucky, Jim, he
stole back to the table, and once more projected himself half the world
away.

Three days had passed since One-Eye's departure. They had been quiet
days. Mrs. Kukor was still gone. Big Tom ventured forth from his
self-imposed imprisonment only late at night. Cis and Mr. Perkins, save
for a cheery greeting scribbled on a post card that pictured the Capitol
at Washington, seemed utterly to have cut themselves off from the flat.
As for Father Pat, of course he had not forgotten Johnnie, not forsaken
a friend; nevertheless, there had been no sign of him.

But having again his seven beloved books (the two extra ones had arrived
by parcel post), Johnnie had not fretted once. What time had he for
fretting? He was either working--cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning,
waiting on the longshoreman or the aged soldier, going out grandly in
his scout uniform to fetch things from the grocer's, smartening
Grandpa's appearance or his own--or else he was reading. And when he was
reading, his world and all of its cares dropped magically away from him,
and the clock hands fairly spun.

One-Eye bidden a brave good-by, one of Johnnie's first jobs had been the
rearranging of Cis's closet room. Though he still felt that he could not
take over for his own use the little place which was sacred to her,
nevertheless he had considered it a fit and proper spot in which to
enshrine his seven volumes. So he had set the dressing-table box back
against the wall, straightened its flounces, and placed the books in a
row upon this attractive bit of furniture, flanking them at one end with
the lamp, at the other with the alarm clock. Then he named the tiny room
the library.

The lamp was for use at night, so that he could prolong his hours of
study and enjoyment, seated on his mattress which, folded twice, made a
luxurious seat of just the right height to command a good view of Mr.
Roosevelt. The clock, on the other hand, was for daylight use only. When
he was seated at the kitchen table, an elbow at either side of a book,
his head propped, and his spirit far away, the clock (having been set
with forethought, but wound only one turn) sounded a soft, short tinkle
for him, calling him from Crusoe's realm, or from those northern forests
through which he followed after Heywood, or f