openin' my second egg down he comes, walkin' a little stiff, but otherwise as good as ever, if not better.

"How far was it that I ran last night, Mr. Dodge?" says he.

"About a mile and a half," says Leonidas, stating it generous. "And it was as good amateur sprinting as I ever saw."

Homer cracked the first smile I'd seen him tackle and pulled up to the table.

"I'm beginning to think," says he, "that there can't be much of a leak in my heart, after all. When we get back to town to-night, Mr. McCabe, we'll have another talk about those boxing lessons. Eggs? Yes, thank you, Mrs. Bickell; about four, soft. And by the way, Dodge, what was the date on that gravestone, anyway?"

What did we do with Homer, eh? Ah, forget it! Say, soon's he got back to town and found he could navigate 'round by himself, he begins to count up expenses. Then he asks us to put in a bill.

"Bill!" says I. "What for? I'm no hired man. I've been doin' this for fun." Leonidas says the same.

But Homer wouldn't have it that way. He says we've done him a lot of good, and lost our valuable time, and he'll feel hurt if we don't let him make us a little present. With that he pries open a fat leather green goods case, paws over a layer of yellow backs two or three inches thick—and fishes out a couple of ten spots.

"Stung!" says Leonidas, under his breath.

"Homer," says I, shovin' 'em back at him, "if you're as grateful as all that, I'll tell you what you'd better do—keep these, and found a Home for Incurable Tight-wads."

Then we loses him in the crowd, and each of us strikes out for himself. Blessed if I know where Leonidas strayed to, but I'm dead sure of the place I fetched up at. It was It'ly, North It'ly. Ever been there? Well, don't. Nothin' but dagoes and garlic and roads that run up hill. Say, some day when my roll needs the anti-fat treatment, I'm goin' to send over there and have 'em put a monument that'll read: "Here's where Shorty McCabe was buried alive for five weeks."

Doing? Wasn't a blamed thing doing there. We were just assassinatin' time, that's all. But the Boss thought he liked it, for a while, so I had to hang on. The Boss? Oh, he's just the Boss. Guess you wouldn't know him—he hasn't been cured by three bottles of anything, and isn't much for buyin' billboard space. But he's a star all right. He's got a mint somewhere, a little private mint of his own, that runs days and nights and overtime. Scotty mine? No, better'n that—defunct grandmothers and such. It's been comin' his way ever since he was big enough to clip a coupon. Don't believe he knows how much he has got, but that don't worry him. He don't even try to spend the gate receipts; just uses what he wants and lets the rest pyramid.

Course, he's out of my class in a way; but then again, he ain't. The way we come to hook up was like this: You see, when I quits Homer, I takes the first thing that comes along, which happens to be the Jericho Lamb. He wants me to train him for his go with Grasshopper Jake, and I did.

Well, we pulls it off in Denver. The Lamb he bores in like a stone crusher for five rounds. Then he stops a cross hook with his jaw and is jarred some. That brings out the yellow. Spite of all I could say, he stops rushin' and plays for wind and safety. Think of that, with the Grasshopper as groggy as a five days old calf! Well, I saw what was coming to him, right there. When the bell rings I chucks my towel to a rubber and quits. I hadn't hired out for no wet nurse, and I told the crowd so.

Just as I was makin' my sneak this quiet-speakin' chap falls in alongside and begins to talk to me. First off I sized him up for one of them English Johnnies that had lost his eyeglass. But that's where I was dead wrong. He wasn't no Johnnie, and he wasn't no tinhorn sport. But he was a new one on me. They don't grow many like him, I guess, so no wonder I didn't get wise right away.

"Think the Lamb's all in?" says he.

"All in!" says I. "He never had anything to put in. He was licked before the bell tapped. And me trainin' him for five weeks! I'm goin' to kick myself all the way back to New York."

"I'll help you," says he. "I backed that Lamb of yours to win."

"How much?" says I.

"Oh, only a few hundred."

"But you ain't seen him licked yet," says I.

"I'll take your word for it," says he.

Say, that was no tinhorn play, was it? He goes off and leaves his good money up, just on a flier like that.

"You're the real goods," says I.

"I can return the sentiment," says he.

So we took the midnight East. When we got the morning papers at Omaha we saw that the Lamb only lasted half-way through the seventh, and 'possumed the count at that. Well, we got some acquainted before we hit Chicago, and by the time we'd landed in Jersey City I'd signed articles with him for a year. He calls it secretary, but I holds out for sparrin' partner.

Oh, he can handle the mitts some, all right; none of your parlor Y. M. C. A. business, either, but give and take. He strips at one hundred and forty and can stand punishment like a stevedore. But, of course, there's no chance of ever gettin' him on the platform. He likes to go his four rounds before dinner, just to take the drab coloring off the world in general. That's the way he puts it.

Take him all around, he's a thoroughbred. I know that much, but after that I don't follow him. I used to wonder sometimes. Give most Johnnies his pile and turn 'em loose, and what would they do? They'd wear out the club window-sills, and take in pink teas, and do the society turn. But not for him. He's a mixer, the Boss is. He wants to see things, all kinds.

Sometimes he lugs me along and sometimes he don't. It all depends on whether I'd fit in. When he heads for Fifth Avenue I know I'm let out. But when he gets into a sack coat and derby hat I'm bettin' that maybe we'll fetch up somewheres on the East Side. Perhaps it'll be the grand annual ball of the Truck Drivers' Association, or just one of them Anarchist talkfests in the back room of some beer parlor. There's no telling. We may drink muddy coffee out of dinky brass cups with a lot of Syrian rug sellers down on Washington Street, or drop into the middle of a gang of sailors down on Front Street.

And I'm no bodyguard, mind. The Boss ain't in much need of that. But he likes to have some one to talk to, and I guess most of his friends don't go in for such promiscuous visitin' lists as he does. I like it well enough, but where he gets any fun out of it I can't see. I put it up to him once, and what do you suppose he says? Asks me if I ever heard of a duck by the name of Panzy de Lean.

"Sounds kind of familiar," says I. "Don't he run a hotel or something down to Palm Beach?"

"You're warm," says the Boss, "but you've mixed your dates. Old Panzy struck the east coast about four hundred years before our friend Flagler annexed it. And he wasn't in the hotel business. Exploring was his line. He was looking for a new kind of mineral water that he was going to call the Elixir of Life. Well, in some ways Panzy and I are alike."

It was a josh, all right, that he was handin' out, but he meant somethin' by it, for the Boss ain't the kind to talk just for the sake of making a noise. I never let on but what I was next. Later in the season I had a chance to come back at him with it, for along in February we got under way for Palm Beach ourselves.

"Goin' to take a hack at the 'lixir business?" I says.

"No, Shorty," says he. "Just going to dodge a few blizzards and