way revealing his designs, and from her
secured certain texts which she had herself unconsciously memorized from
many hearings of Jowler preachers. They were:

"Fight the good fight."
"Never give up."
"He never fails who dies in a good cause."
"Never say die."

For a time Billy was content with these quotations, written in a
school-boy hand upon brown paper, and carried in his left-hand trousers
pocket, but later he discovered that most of the scientists in the house
who "held a thought" themselves prepared their own little bit of
manuscript to be carried and read during the day, and that the text was
made to apply to their special needs. Billy, after much meditation,
concluded this was the thing for him, and with great travail he composed
and wrote out the new texts which he should carry constantly and which
should be his bulwark. Here they are:

"Ketch hold prompt and hang on."
"Strike from the shoulder."
"A kick for a blow, always bestow."
"When you get a good thing, keep it--keep it."
"When you get a black cat, skin it to the tail."

Only a week later one William Dodge and one Jim McMasters again met in
more or less mortal combat, and one William Dodge, repeating the shorter
of his texts as he fought, was again the victor.

"Gimme Christian Science!" he said to himself, as he put on his coat
after the fray was over.

* * * * *

Billy Dodge was fast drifting, although unconsciously, toward a crisis
in his religious and worldly experiences. At school, during the last
term, and so far in the summer vacation, his scheme of fortifying his
physical powers with mental stimulants in the form of warlike "thoughts"
had worked well. His chief rival for the honors of war, an energetic
youngster, whose name, Jim McMasters, proclaimed his Irish ancestry, he
had soundly thrashed more than once since adopting his new tactics. So
far Billy had found that to hold the thought, "Ketch hold prompt and
hang on," while he acted vigorously upon that stirring sentiment, meant
victory, and he had more than once tried the efficacy of, "Strike from
the shoulder," under adverse conditions and with success.

It was during this summer of anxiety to the more important personages of
this story that Billy Dodge was called upon to prove the practical value
of his belief in the supremacy of mind over matter, and although Billy
emerged from the trial none the worse for his experience, it effected a
radical