come needed as much stretchin'
as the pay of a twenty-dollar clothing clerk tryin' to live in a
thirty-five dollar flat. And this is the burg where you can be as hard up
on fifty thousand a year as on five hundred!

The one thing the Mallorys had to look forward to was the time when Aunt
Elvira would trade her sealskin sack for a robe of glory and loosen up on
her real estate. She was near seventy, Aunty was, and when she first went
out to live at the old country place, up beyond Fort George, it was a
good half-day's trip down to 23d-st. But she went right on livin', and
New York kept right on growin', and now she owns a cow pasture two blocks
from a subway station, and raises potatoes on land worth a thousand
dollars a front foot.

Bein' of different tastes and habits, her and Brother Craig never got
along together very well, and there was years when each of 'em tried to
forget that the other existed. When little Dyckman came, though, the
frost was melted. She hadn't paid any attention to the girls; but a boy
was diff'rent. Never havin' had a son of her own to boss around and brag
about, she took it out on Dyke. A nice, pious old lady, Aunt Elvira was;
and the mere fact that little Dyke seemed to fancy the taste of a morocco
covered New Testament she presented to him on his third birthday settled
his future in her mind.

"He shall be a Bishop!" says she, and hints that accordin' as Dyckman
shows progress along that line she intends loadin' him up with worldly
goods.

Up to the age of fifteen, Dyke gives a fair imitation of a Bishop in the
bud. He's a light haired, pleasant spoken youth, who stands well with his
Sunday school teacher and repeats passages from the Psalms for Aunt
Elvira when she comes down to inflict her annual visit.

But from then on the bulletins wa'n't so favor'ble. At the diff'rent
prep. schools where he was tried out he appeared to be too much of a live
one to make much headway with the dead languages. About the only subjects
he led his class in was hazing and football and buildin' bonfires of the
school furniture. Being expelled got to be so common with him that
towards the last he didn't stop to unpack his trunk.

Not that these harrowin' details was passed on to Aunt Elvira. The
Mallorys begun by doctorin' the returns, and they developed into reg'lar
experts at the game of representin' to Aunty what a sainted little fellow
Dyke was growin' to be. The more practice they got, the harder thei