ldren, all nearsighted, like
herself.

The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the
Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of the business,
arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were at home,
and "knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy." His
father told, in turn, the plan his corporation was considering, of
putting in an electric railway plant in Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth;
he had an awful apprehension that they might spoil it all before he got
there. Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that
were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces
in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo
appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of these
cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy
stage.

After supper was over and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul
nervously asked his father whether he could go to George's to get some
help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked for carfare. This
latter request he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not
like to hear requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul
whether he could not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that
he ought not to leave his schoolwork until Sunday; but he gave him the
dime. He was not a poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up
in the world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher was that he
thought a boy ought to be earning a little.

Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the dishwater from
his hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over his
fingers a few drops of violet water from the bottle he kept hidden in
his drawer. He left the house with his geometry conspicuously under his
arm, and the moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown
car, he shook off the lethargy of two deadening days and began to live
again.

The leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at one
of the downtown theaters was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the boy
had been invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals whenever
he could. For more than a year Paul had spent every available moment
loitering about Charley Edwards's dressing room. He had won a place
among Edwards's following not only because the young actor, who could
not afford to employ a dresser, often found him useful,