ed and flickered. Already the knapsack on his
shoulders pressed upon him like an Old Man of the Sea; the linen in the
valise had turned to pig iron, his pipe-stem legs were wabbling, his
eyes smarted with salt sweat, and the fingers supporting the valise
belonged to some other boy, and were giving that boy much pain. But as
the motor-cars flashed past with raucous warnings, or, that those who
rode might better see the boy with bare knees, passed at "half speed,"
Jimmie stiffened his shoulders and stepped jauntily forward. Even when
the joy-riders mocked with "Oh, you scout!" he smiled at them. He was
willing to admit to those who rode that the laugh was on the one who
walked. And he regretted--oh, so bitterly--having left the train. He
was indignant that for his "one good turn a day" he had not selected
one less strenuous--that, for instance, he had not assisted a
frightened old lady through the traffic. To refuse the dime she might
have offered, as all true scouts refuse all tips, would have been
easier than to earn it by walking five miles, with the sun at
ninety-nine degrees, and carrying excess baggage. Twenty times James
shifted the valise to the other hand, twenty times he let it drop and
sat upon it.

And then, as again he took up his burden, the good Samaritan drew near.
He drew near in a low gray racing-car at the rate of forty miles an
hour, and within a hundred feet of Jimmie suddenly stopped and backed
toward him. The good Samaritan was a young man with white hair. He
wore a suit of blue, a golf cap; the hands that held the wheel were
disguised in large yellow gloves. He brought the car to a halt and
surveyed the dripping figure in the road with tired and uncurious eyes.

"You a Boy Scout?" he asked.

With alacrity for the twenty-first time Jimmie dropped the valise,
forced his cramped fingers into straight lines, and saluted.

The young man in the car nodded toward the seat beside him.

"Get in," he commanded.

When James sat panting happily at his elbow the old young man, to
Jimmie's disappointment, did not continue to shatter the speed limit.
Instead, he seemed inclined for conversation, and the car, growling
indignantly, crawled.

"I never saw a Boy Scout before," announced the old young man. "Tell me
about it. First, tell me what you do when you're not scouting."

Jimmie explained volubly. When not in uniform he was an office boy,
and from peddlers and beggars guarded the gates of C