friend us in love or in danger.

But there was one of his rivals, he knew, who was a man to be
reckoned with. Charley Greengay was a young salesman who wore
tailor-made clothes and spotted waistcoats, and had a necktie for
every day in the month. His air was that of a young man who is out
for things that come high and who is going to get them. Mrs. Brown
was ever and again dropping a word before Percy about how the girl
that took Charley would have her flat furnished by the best
furniture people, and her china-closet stocked with the best ware,
and would have nothing to worry about but nicks and scratches. It
was because he felt himself pitted against this pulling power of
Greengay's that Percy had brazenly lied to Mrs. Brown, and told her
that his salary had been raised to fifty a week, and that now he
wanted to get married.

When he threw out this challenge to Mother Brown, Percy was getting
thirty-five dollars a week, and he knew well enough that there were
several hundred thousand young men in New York who would do his work
as well as he did for thirty.

These were the factors in Percy's present situation. He went over
them again and again as he sat stooping on his tall stool. He had
quite lost track of time when he heard the janitor call good night
to the watchman. Without thinking what he was doing, he slid into
his overcoat, caught his hat, and rushed out to the elevator, which
was waiting for the janitor. The moment the car dropped, it occurred
to him that the thing was decided without his having made up his
mind at all. The familiar floors passed him, ten, nine, eight,
seven. By the time he reached the fifth, there was no possibility of
going back; the click of the drop-lever seemed to settle that. The
money was in his pocket. Now, he told himself as he hurried out into
the exciting clamor of the street, he was not going to worry about
it any more.

* * * * *

When Percy reached the Browns' flat on 123d Street that evening he
felt just the slightest chill in Stella's greeting. He could make
that all right, he told himself, as he kissed her lightly in the
dark three-by-four entrance-hall. Percy's courting had been
prosecuted mainly in the Bronx or in winged pursuit of a Broadway
car. When he entered the crowded sitting-room he greeted Mrs. Brown
respectfully and the four girls playfully. They were all piled on
one couch, reading the continued story in the evening paper, and