m
quite himself. Even if he walked quite steadily he might not be able to
talk quite steadily, but he was always a King, always sure of his
manner, be he ever so unsure of his feet or his tongue. He had been
worse since his wife died, when the boy was still a toddler. She was a
slim, sandy-haired Scotch girl with steady eyes and a prominent chin,
who had married him to reform him, and the neighbors were beginning to
think she was in a fair way to compass it when she died. No one had ever
been able to pity Jeanie King; she had been as proud as the pale lady
who came with the first "Wild King" from Virginia. There was that about
the Kings; it had to be granted that their women always stuck; they must
have had compensating traits and graces. No King wife ever gave up or
deserted save by death, and no King wife ever wept on a neighbor's
shoulder.

And now they had all wandered back to Virginia or up to Alaska or down
to Mexico, and there was not an uncle or cousin of his tribe left in Los
Angeles for Jimsy King; only his bad, beloved father, coming home at
noon in rumpled evening dress, but wearing it better and more handily,
for all that, than any other man on the block.

It was agreed that there was no chance for Jimsy to escape the heritage
of his blood. People were kind about it, but very firm. "If his mother
had lived he might have had a chance, the poor boy," Mrs. Lorimer would
sigh, "but with that father, and that home life, and that example----"

"My dear," said Stephen Lorimer, "can't you see what you are doing? By
_you_ I mean the neighborhood. You are holding his heredity up like a
hoop for him to jump through!"

Honor's stepfather held that there might be a generous share of the
firm-chinned Scotch mother in Jimsy. Certainly it was a fighting chance;
he was living in a day of less warmth and color than his father and his
forbears; there were more outlets for his interest and his energy. His
father, for instance, had not played football. Jimsy had played as soon
as he could walk alone--football, baseball, basketball, handball, water
polo; life was a hard and tingling game to him. "It's an even chance,"
said Stephen Lorimer, "and if Honor's palling with him can swing it, can
we square it with ourselves to take her away from him?" He carried his
point, as usual, and the boy and the girl started in at Los Angeles High
on the same day. Honor decided on the subjects which Jimsy could most
safely take--the things h