William and the big fellow were jogging along in the doctor's shabby
buggy out toward Miss Lydia's; she was very frail that summer and Johnny
had insisted that William King should come to see her. "The Robertsons
know _you_, apparently," the doctor said.

"Well, yes," John said, "and they've been nice to me ever since I can
remember."

"G'on!" Doctor King told his mare, and slapped a rein down on Jinny's
back.

"But, Doctor King, they _are_ queer," Johnny insisted. "What's the milk
in the coconut about 'em?"

"Maybe a thunderstorm soured it."

Johnny grinned, then he looked at Jinny's ears, coughed, and said, "I'd
like to ask you a question, sir."

"Go ahead."

"When people are kind to you--just what do you owe 'em? I didn't ask
them to be kind to me--I mean the Robertsons--but, holy Peter!" said
Johnny, "they've given me presents ever since I was a child. They even
had a wild idea of getting me to take their name! I said, 'No, thank
you!' Why should I take their name? . . . Mrs. Robertson always seems
sort of critical of Aunty. Think of that! Course she never says
anything; she'd better not! If she did I'd raise Cain. But I _feel_ it,"
Johnny said, frowning. "Well, what I want to know is, what do you owe
people who do you favors? Mind you, _I_ don't want their favors!"

"Well," William ruminated, "I should say that we owe people who do us
favors, the truth of how we feel about them. If the truth wouldn't be
agreeable to them, don't accept the favors!"

"Well, the 'truth' is that I get mad when Mrs. Robertson looks down on
Aunty! Think of what she's stood for me!" the boy said, suddenly very
red in the face. "When I was fifteen one of the fellows told me I
was--was her son. I rubbed his nose in the mud."

"Oh, that was how Mack got his broken nose, was it?" Doctor King
inquired, much interested. "Well, I'm glad you did it. I guess it cured
him of being _one_ kind of a fool. There was a time when I wanted to rub
one or two female noses in the mud. However, they are really not worth
thinking of, Johnny."

"No," John agreed, "but anybody who looks cross-eyed in my presence at
Aunt Lydia will get his head punched."

"Amen," said William King, and drew Jinny in at Miss Lydia's gate.

It cannot be said that William King's opinion as to what we owe people
who do us favors was very illuminating to Johnny. "I like 'em--and I
don't like 'em," he told Miss Lydia, with a bothered look. "But I wish
to Heaven she'