know what it was half about, but he knows he came near to punching
Withrow."

And Wesley and Tommie had to talk that out; and between the pair of
them, thinking of what they said, I thought I ought to walk back to
the store with barely a civil look for my employer, who didn't like
that at all, for he generally wanted to hand out the black looks
himself.

Then the girls--my cousin Nellie and her particular chum, Alice
Foster--came in to weigh themselves, and also to remind me, they said,
that I was to take them over to Essex the next day for the launching
of the new vessel for the Duncan firm, which had been designed by a
friend of Nell's, a young fellow named Will Somers, who was just
beginning to get a name in Gloucester for fast and able models of
vessels. Withrow, who was not over-liberal with his holidays, said I
might go--mostly, I suspect, because Alice Foster had said she would
not make the trip without Nell, and Nell would not go unless I went
too.

Then Nell and Miss Foster went on with the business of weighing
themselves. That was in line with the latest fad. It was always
something or other, and physical culture was in the air at this time
with every other girl in Gloucester, so far as I could see--either
Indian-club swinging or dumb-bell drilling, long walks, and things of
that kind, and telling how much better they felt after it. My cousin
Nell, who went in for anything that anybody ever told her about, was
trying to reduce her weight. According to some perfect-form charts, or
something or other on printed sheets, she weighed seven pounds more
than she should for her height. I thought she was about the right
weight myself, and told her so, but she said no--she was positively
fat. "Look at Alice," she said, "she's just the thing."

I looked at Alice--Miss Foster I always called her myself--and
certainly she was a lovely girl, though perhaps a little too conscious
of it. She was one of the few that weren't going in for anything that
I could see. She wasn't even weighing herself, or at least she didn't
until Mr. Withrow, with his company manners in fine working order,
asked her if she wouldn't allow him to weigh her.

There were people in town who said it was not for nothing that
Alice Foster was so chummy with my cousin Nell. They meant, of
course, that being chummy with Nell, who came down regularly to see
me, gave herself a good excuse to come along and so have a word with
Withrow. Fred Withrow hims