annot permit you to pay for mine."

And still the speaker made no movement to purchase his ticket.

Herbert settled the matter by laying half a dollar on the desk,
and asking for two tickets. He began to see that, in spite of his
disclaimer, his guide intended him to do so. On the whole, this didn't
please him. He would rather have had his offer frankly accepted.

"I didn't mean to have you pay," said the young man, as they passed
through the door admitting them to an inner apartment, from which there
was an exit into a small, inclosed yard, through which they were to
reach the entrance to a spiral staircase by which the ascent was made.

Herbert did not answer, for he understood that his guide was not telling
the truth, and he did not like falsehood or deceit.

They entered the monument and commenced the ascent.

"We have a tiresome ascent before us," said the other.

"How many steps are there?" asked Herbert.

"About three hundred," was the reply.

At different points in the ascent they came to landings where they could
catch glimpses of the outward world through long, narrow, perpendicular
slits in the sides of the monument.

At last they reached the top.

Herbert's guide looked about him sharply, and seemed disappointed to
find a lady and gentleman and child also enjoying the view.

Herbert had never been so high before. Indeed, he had never been in any
high building, and he looked about him with a novel sense of enjoyment.

"What a fine view there is here!" he said.

"True," assented his companion. "Let me point out to you the different
towns visible to the naked eye."

"I wish you would," said the boy.

So his guide pointed out Cambridge, Chelsea, Malden, the Charles and
Mystic Rivers, gleaming in the sunshine, the glittering dome of the
Boston State House and other conspicuous objects. Herbert felt that it
was worth something to have a companion who could do him this service,
and he felt the extra twenty cents he had paid for his companion's
ticket was a judicious investment.

He noticed with some surprise that his companion seemed annoyed by the
presence of the other party already referred to. He scowled and shrugged
his shoulders when he looked at them, and in a low voice, inaudible to
those of whom he spoke, he said to Herbert: "Are they going to stay here
all day?"

"What does it matter to me if they do?" returned Herbert, in surprise.

Indeed, to him they seemed very pleasant people, an