nksgiving--to his very toes. "Aladdin,"--he spoke aloud to that other
boy, who was so poor; "you're goin' t' be a dandy friend of mine! Yes,
and your Pa and Ma, too! And I'll introduce you to Buckle, and Mr.
Rockefeller, and a lot of nice folks!"

Presently he brought the book up to where, by lowering his head, he
could lay a thin cheek against that front page. Then, "Oh, Mister J. J.
Hunter," he added huskily, "I hope you ain't never goin' to want this
back!"

CHAPTER VI

THE DEAREST WISH

HE read--and the shining Orient burst upon him!

It was as if the most delicate of gossamer curtains had been brushed
aside so that he could look at a new world. What he saw there rooted him
to his chair, holding him spellbound. Yet not so much because it
contrasted sharply with his own little world, this bare flat of Barber's
in the lower East Side, as that it seemed to fit in perfectly with his
own experiences.

Aladdin was a boy like himself, who was scolded, and cuffed on the ears.
The African magician was just another as wicked and cruel as the
longshoreman. As for that Slave of the Ring, Johnnie considered him no
more wonderful than Buckle. In fact, there was nothing impossible, or
even improbable, about the story. It held him by its sheer reality. Its
drama enthralled him, too. And he gloried in all its beauty of golden
dishes, gorgeous dress, fountain-fed gardens, jewel-fruited trees and
prancing steeds.

He read carefully, one forefinger traveling to and fro across the wide
pages, while his lips moved silently, and he dragged at his hair.
Sometimes he came to words he did not understand--_chastisement_,
_incorrigible_, _physiognomist_, _handicraft_, _equipped_, _mosques_,
_liberality_. He went over them and pressed on, just as he might have
climbed one wall after the other if these barred his way. He could come
back to the hard words later--and he would. But first he must know how
things fared with this other boy.

When Grandpa wakened, Johnnie fairly wrenched his look from beautiful
Cathay to face the demands which the Borough of Manhattan made upon him.
Tucking his book under the wide neckband of the big shirt, he let it
slip down to rest at his belt. The old soldier was hungry. He was
supplied with milk toast so speedily that it was the next thing to
magic. Then Johnnie discovered a hollow feeling which centered in his
own anatomy, whereupon he ate several, cold boiled potatoes well spiced
with mustard.