From her father's works Elizabeth and Harriet drove to the shopping district, where they strolled through a couple of shops and then stopped at one of the larger stores.

Jimmy Torrance was arranging his stock, fully nine-tenths of which he could have sworn he had just shown an elderly spinster who had taken at least half an hour of his time and then left without making a purchase. His back was toward his counter when his attention was attracted by a feminine voice asking if he was busy. As he turned about he recognized her instantly--the girl for whom he had changed a wheel a month before and who unknowingly had infused new ambition into his blood and saved him, temporarily at least, from becoming a quitter.

He noticed as he waited on her that she seemed to be appraising him very carefully, and at times there was a slightly puzzled expression on her face, but evidently she did not recognize him, and finally when she had concluded her purchases he was disappointed that she paid for them in cash. He had rather hoped that she would have them charged and sent, that he might learn her name and address. And then she left, with Jimmy none the wiser concerning her other than that her first name was Elizabeth and that she was even better-looking than he recalled her to have been.

"And the girl with her!" exclaimed Jimmy mentally. "They are the two best-looking girls I have seen in this town, notwithstanding the fact that whether one likes Chicago or not he's got to admit that there are more pretty girls here than in any other city in the country.

"I'm glad she didn't recognize me. Of course, I don't know her, and the chances are that I never shall, but I should hate to have any one recognize me here, or hereafter, as that young man at the stocking counter. Gad! but it's beastly that a regular life-sized man should be selling stockings to women for a living, or rather for a fraction of a living."

While Jimmy had always been hugely disgusted with his position, the sight of the girl seemed to have suddenly crystallized all those weeks of self-contempt into a sudden almost mad desire to escape what he considered his degrading and effeminating surroundings. One must bear with Jimmy and judge him leniently, for after all, notwithstanding his college diploma and physique, he was still but a boy and so while it is difficult for a mature and sober judgment to countenance his next step, if one can look back a few years to his own youth he can at least find extenuating circumstances surrounding Jimmy's seeming foolishness.

For with a bang that caused startled clerks in all directions to look up from their work he shattered the decorous monotone of the great store by slamming his sales book viciously upon the counter, and without a word of explanation to his fellow clerks marched out of the section toward the buyer's desk.

"Well, Mr. Torrance," asked that gentleman, "what can I do for you?"

"I am going to quit," announced Jimmy.

"Quit!"' exclaimed the buyer. "Why, what's wrong? Isn't everything satisfactory? You have never complained to me."

"I can't explain," replied Jimmy. "I am going to quit. I am not satisfied. I am going to er--ah--accept another position."

The buyer raised his eyebrows. "Ah! he said. "With--" and he named their closest competitor.

"No," said Jimmy. "I am going to get a regular he-job."

The other smiled. "If an increase in salary," he suggested, "would influence you, I had intended to tell you that I would take care of you beginning next week. I thought of making it fifteen dollars," and with that unanswerable argument for Jimmy's continued service the buyer sat back and folded his hands.

"Nothing stirring," said Jimmy. "I wouldn't sell another sock if you paid me ten thousand dollars a year. I am through."

"Oh, very well," said the buyer aggrievedly, "but if you leave me this way you will be unable to refer to the house."

But nothing, not even a team of oxen, could have held Jimmy in that section another minute, and so he got his pay and left with nothing more in view than a slow death by starvation.

"There," exclaimed Elizabeth Compton, as she sank back on the cushions of her car.

"There what?" asked Harriet.

"I have placed him."

"Whom?"

"That nice-looking young person who waited on us in the hosiery section."

"Oh!" said Harriet. "He was nice-looking, wasn't he? But be looked out of place there, and I think he felt out of place. Did you notice how he flushed when he asked you what size?" The girls laughed heartily at the recollection. "But where have you ever met him before?" Harriet asked.

"I have never met him," corrected Elizabeth, accenting the "met." "He changed a wheel on the roadster several weeks ago one evening after I had taken Harold down to the club. And he was very nice about it. I should say that he is a gentleman, although his clothes were pretty badly worn."

"Yes," said Harriet, "his suit was shabby, but his linen was clean and his coat well brushed."

"My!" Elizabeth smiled. "He must have made an impression on someone."

"Well, it isn't often you see such a nice-looking chap in the hosiery section."

"No," replied Elizabeth, "and probably if he were as nice as he looks he
wouldn't be there."

Whereupon the subject was changed, and she promptly forgot Mr. Jimmy Torrance.

But Jimmy was not destined soon to forget Elizabeth, for as the jobless days passed and he realized more and more what an ass he had made of himself, and why, he had occasion to think about her a great deal, although never in any sense reproaching her. He realized that the fault was his own and that he had done a foolish thing in giving up his position because of a girl he did not know and probably never would.

There came a Saturday when Jimmy, jobless and fundless, dreaded his return to the Indiana Avenue rooming-house, where he knew the landlady would be eagerly awaiting him, for he was a week in arrears in his room rent already, and had been warned he could expect no further credit.

"There is a nice young man wanting your room," the landlady had told him, "and I shall have to be having it Saturday night unless you can pay up."

Jimmy stood on the corner of Clark and Van Buren looking at his watch. "I hate to do it," he thought, "but the Lizard said he could get twenty for it, and twenty would give me another two weeks."

And so his watch went, and two weeks later his cigarette-case and ring followed. Jimmy had never gone in much for jewelry--a fact which he now greatly lamented.

Some of the clothes he still had were good, though badly in want of pressing, and when, after still further days of fruitless searching for work the proceeds from the articles he had pawned were exhausted, it occurred to him he might raise something on all but what he actually needed to cover his nakedness.

In his search for work he was still wearing his best-looking suit; the others he would dispose of; and with this plan in his mind on his return to his room that night he went to the tiny closet to make a bundle of the things which he would dispose of on the morrow, only to discover that in his absence some one had been there before him, and that there was nothing left for him to sell.

It would be two days before his room rent was again due, but in the meantime Jimmy had no money wherewith to feed the inner man. It was an almost utterly discouraged Jimmy who crawled into his bed to spend a sleepless night of worry and vain regret, the principal object of his regret being that he was not the son of a blacksmith who had taught him how to shoe horses and who at the same time had been too poor to send him to college.

Long since there had been driven into his mind the conviction that for any practical purpose in life a higher education was as useless as the proverbial fifth wheel to the coach.

"And even," mused Jimmy, "if I had graduated at the head of my class, I would be no better off than I am now."
 

The next day, worn out from loss of sleep, the young man started out upon a last frenzied search for employment. He had no money for breakfast, and so he went breakfastless, and as he had no carfare it was necessary for him to walk the seemingly interminable miles from one prospective job to another. By the middle of the afternoon Jimmy was hungrier than he had ever been before in his life. He was so hungry that it actually hurt, and he was weak from physical fatigue and from disappointment and worry.

"I've got to eat," he soliloquized fiercely as the odors of cooking food came to him from a cheap restaurant that he was passing. "If I have to go out tonight and pound somebody on the head to get the price, and I'm going to do it."

Jimmy stopped a moment and looked into the window at the catsup bottles and sad-looking pies which the proprietor apparently seemed to think formed an artistic and attractive window display.

"If I had a brick," thought Jimmy, "I would have one of those pies, even if I went to the jug for it," but his hunger had not made him as desperate as he thought he was, and so he passed slowly on, and, glancing into the windows of the store next door, saw a display of second-hand clothes and the sign "Clothes Bought and Sold."

Jimmy looked at those in the window and then down at his own, which, though wrinkled, were infinitely better than anything on display.

"I wonder," he mused, "if I couldn't put something over in the way of high finance here," and, acting upon the inspiration, he entered the dingy little shop. When he emerged twenty minutes later he wore a shabby and rather disreputable suit of hand-me-downs, but he had two silver dollars in his pocket.

When Jimmy returned to his room that night it was with a full stomach, but with the knowledge that he had practically reached the end of his rope. He had been unable to bring himself to the point of writing his father an admission of his failure, and in fact he had gone so far, and in his estimation had sunk so low, that he had definitely determined he would rather starve to death now than admit his utter inefficiency to those whose respect he most valued.

As he climbed the stairway to his room he heard some one descending from above, and as they passed beneath the dim light of a flickering gas-jet he realized that the other stopped suddenly and turned back to look after him as Jimmy continued his ascent of the stairs; and then a low voice inquired: "Say, bo, what you doin' here?"

Jimmy turned toward the questioner and recognition of the other dawned slowly upon him. "It's you, is it? My old and esteemed friend, the Lizard."

"Sure, it's me," replied the Lizard. "But what you doin' here? Looking
for an assistant general manager?"

"Don't rub it in," Jimmy said, smiling.

The other ascended toward him, his keen eyes appraising him from head to foot. "You live here?"

"Yes," replied Jimmy; "do you?"

"Sure, I been livin' here for the last six months."

"That's funny," said Jimmy; "I have been here about two months myself."

"What's the matter with you?" asked the Lizard. "Didn't you like the job as general manager?"

Jimmy flushed.

"Where's you room?" asked the Lizard.

"Up another flight," said Jimmy. "Won't you come up?"

"Sure," said the Lizard, and together the two ascended the stairs and entered Jimmy's room. Under the brighter light there the Lizard scrutinized his host.

"You been against it, bo, haven't you?" he asked.

"I sure have," said Jimmy.

"Gee," said the other, "what a difference clothes make! You look like a regular bum."

"Thanks," said Jimmy.

"What you doin'?" asked the Lizard.

"Nothing."

"Lose your job?"

"I quit it," said Jimmy. "I've only worked a month since I've been here, and that for the munificent salary of ten dollars a week."

"Do you want to make some coin?" asked the Lizard.

"I sure do," said Jimmy. "I don't know of anything 1 would rather have."

"I'm pullin' off something tomorrow night. I can use you," and he eyed Jimmy shrewdly as he spoke.

"Cracking a box?" asked Jimmy, grinning.

"It might be something like that," replied the Lizard; "but you won't have nothin' to do but stand where I put you and make a noise like a cat if you see anybody coming. It ought to be something good. I been working on it for three months. We'll split something like fifty thousand thirty-seventy."

"Is that the usual percentage?" asked Jimmy.

"It's what I'm offerin' you," replied the lizard.

Thirty per cent of fifty thousand dollars! Jimmy jingled the few pieces of silver remaining in his pocket. Fifteen thousand dollars! And here he had been walking his legs off and starving in a vain attempt to earn a few paltry dollars honestly.

"There's something wrong somewhere," muttered Jimmy to himself.

"I'm taking it from an old crab who has more than he can use, and all of it he got by robbing people that didn't have any to spare. He's a big guy here. When anything big is doing the newspaper guys interview him and his name is in all the lists of subscriptions to charity--when they're going to be published in the papers. I'll bet he takes nine-tenths of his kale from women and children, and he's an honored citizen. I ain't no angel, but whatever I've taken didn't cause nobody any sufferin'--I'm a thief, bo, and I'm mighty proud of it when I think of what this other guy is."

Thirty per cent of fifty thousand dollars! Jimmy was sitting with his legs crossed. He looked down at his ill-fitting, shabby trousers, and then turned up the sole of one shoe which was worn through almost to his sock. The Lizard watched him as a cat watches a mouse. He knew that the other was thinking hard, and that presently he would reach a decision, and through Jimmy's mind marched a sordid and hateful procession of recent events--humiliation, rebuff, shame, poverty, hunger, and in the background the face of his father and the face of a girl whose name, even, he did not know.

"Nothing doing, old top," he said, looking up at the Lizard. "But don't mistake the motives which prompt me to refuse your glittering offer. I am moved by no moral scruples, however humiliating such a confession should be. The way I feel now I would almost as lief go out and rob widows and orphans myself, but each of us, some time in our life, has to consider some one who would probably rather see us dead than disgraced. I don't know whether you get me or not."

"I get you," replied the Lizard, "and while you may never wear diamonds, you'll get more pleasure out of life than I ever will, provided you don't starve to death too soon. You know, I had a hunch you would turn me down, and I'm glad you did. If you were going crooked some time I thought I'd like to have you with me. When it comes to men, I'm a pretty good picker. That's the reason I have kept out of jail so long. I either pick a square one or I work alone."

"Thanks," said Jimmy, "but how do you know that after you pull this job I won't tip off the police and claim the reward."

The Lizard grinned his lip grin. "There ain't one chance in a million. You'd starve to death before you'd do that. And now, what you want is a job. I can probably get you one if you ain't too particular." "I'd do anything," said Jimmy, "that I could do and still look a policeman in the face."

"All right," said the Lizard. "When I come back I'll bring you a job of some sort. I may be back tonight, and I may not be back again for a month, and in the mean time you got to live."

He drew a roll of bills from his pocket and commenced to count out several.

"Hold on! "cried Jimmy. "Once again, nothing doing."

"Forget it," admonished the Lizard. "I'm just payin' back the twenty you loaned me."

"But I didn't loan it to you," said Jimmy; "I gave it to you as a reward for finding my watch."

The Lizard laughed and shoved the money across the table.

"Take it," he said; "don't be a damn fool. And now so long! I may bring you home a job to-night, but if I don't you've got enough to live on for a couple of weeks."

After the Lizard had gone Jimmy sat looking at the twenty dollars for a long time.

"Just imagine," he soliloquized, "the only friend I've got in Chicago is a safe-blower."
 

"Harold noticed it first," she replied, "and called my attention to it; and now I can see that you really have been failing."

"Failing!" ejaculated Compton, with a scoff. "Failing nothing! You're a pair of young idiots. I'm good for twenty years more of hard work, but, as I told Harold, I would like to quit and travel, and I shall do so just as soon as I am convinced that he can take my place."

"Couldn't he do it now?"

"No, I am afraid not," replied Compton. "It is too much to expect of him, but I believe that in another year he will be able to."

And so Compton put an end to the suggestion that he travel for his health, and that night when Bince called she told him that she had been unable to persuade her father that he needed a rest.

"I am afraid," he said "that you don't take it seriously enough yourself, and that you failed to impress upon him the real gravity of his condition. It is really necessary that he go--he must go."

The girl looked up quickly at the speaker, whose tones seemed unnecessarily vehement.

"I don't quite understand," she said, "why you should take the matter so to heart. Father is the best judge of his own condition, and, while he may need a rest, I cannot see that he is in any immediate danger."

"Oh, well," replied Bince irritably, "I just wanted him to get away for his own sake. Of course, it don't mean anything to me."

"What's the matter with you tonight, anyway, Harold?" she asked a half an hour later. "You're as cross and disagreeable as you can be."

"No, I'm not," he said. "There is nothing the matter with me at all."

But his denial failed to convince her, and as, unusually early, a few minutes later he left, she realized that she had spent a most unpleasant evening.

Bince went directly to his club, where he found four other men who were evidently awaiting him.

"Want to sit in a little game tonight, Harold?" asked one of them.

"Oh, hell, you know I want to," replied Bince. "My luck's got to change some time."

"Sure thing it has," agreed another of the men. "You certainly have been playing in rotten luck, but when it does change--oh, baby!"

As the five men entered one of the cardrooms several of the inevitable spectators drew away from the other games and approached their table, for it was a matter of club gossip that these five played for the largest stakes of any coterie among the habitues of the card-room.

It was two o'clock in the morning before Bince disgustedly threw his cards upon the table and rose. There was a nasty expression on his face and in his mind a thing which he did not dare voice--the final crystallization of a suspicion that he had long harbored, that his companions had been for months deliberately fleecing him. Tonight he had lost five thousand dollars, nor was there a man at the table who did not hold his I. 0. U's. for similar amounts.

"I'm through, absolutely through," he said. "I'll be damned if I ever touch another card."

His companions only smiled wearily, for they knew that tomorrow night he would be back at the table.

"How much of old man Compton's money did you get tonight?" asked one of the four after Bince had left the room.

"About two thousand dollars," was the reply, "which added to what I already hold, puts Mr. Compton in my debt some seven or eight thousand dollars."

Whereupon they all laughed.

"I suppose," remarked another, "that it's a damn shame, but if we don't get it someone else will."

"Is he paying anything at all?" asked another.

"Oh, yes; he comes across with something now and then, but we'll probably have to carry the bulk of it until after the wedding."

"Well, I can't carry it forever," said the first speaker, rising to his feet. "I'm not playing here for my health."

He too left the room. Going directly to the buffet, he found Bince, as he was quite sure that he would. He said, "Look here, old man, I hate to seem insistent, but, on the level, I've got to have some money."

"I've told you two or three times,"' replied Bince, "that I'd let you have it as soon as I could get it. I can't get you any now."

"If you haven't got it, Mason Compton has," retorted the creditor, "and if you don't come across I'll go to him and get it."

"You wouldn't do that, Harry?" Bince paled. "For God's sake, Harry, don't do that, and I'll try and see what I can do for you."

"Well," replied the other, "I don't want to be nasty, but I need some money badly."

"Give me a little longer," begged Bince, "and I'll see what I can do."

Jimmy Torrance turned the twenty dollars he had received from Lizard in his hands.

"God!" he muttered. "I wonder what dad would say if he knew that I had come to a point where I had even momentarily considered going into partnership with a safe-blower, and that for the next two weeks I shall be compelled to subsist upon the charity of a criminal?

"I'm sure glad that I have a college education. It has helped me materially to win to my present exalted standing in society. Oh, well I might be worse off, I suppose. At least I don't have to worry about the income tax.

"It is now October, and since the first of the year I have earned forty dollars exactly. I have also received a bequest of twenty dollars, which of course is exempt. I venture to say that there is not another able-bodied adult male in the United States the making of whose income-tax schedule would be simpler than mine."

With which philosophic trend of thought, and the knowledge that he could eat for at least two weeks longer, the erstwhile star amateur first baseman sought the doubtful comfort of his narrow, lumpy bed.

It was in the neighborhood of two o'clock the next morning that he was awakened by a gentle tapping upon the panels of his door.

"Who is it?" he asked. "What do you want?"

"It's me bo," came the whispered reply in the unmistakable tones of the Lizard.

Jimmy arose, lighted the gas, and opened the door.

"What's the matter?" he whispered. "Are the police on your trail?"

"No," replied the Lizard, grinning. "I just dropped in to tell you that I grabbed a job for you."

"Fine!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You're a regular fellow all right."

"But you might not like the job," suggested the Lizard.

"As long as I can earn an honest dollar," cried Jimmy, striking a dramatic pose, "I care not what it may be."

"I ain't so sure about that." The Lizard's grin broadened. "I know your kind. You're a regular gent. There is some honest jobs that you would just as soon have as the smallpox, and maybe this is one of them."

"What is it?" asked Jimmy. "Don't keep me guessing any longer."

"You know Feinheimer's Cabaret."

"The basement joint on Wells Street?" asked Jimmy. "Sure I know it."

"Well that's where I got you a job," said the Lizard.

"What doing?" asked Jimmy.

"Waiter," was the reply.

"It isn't any worse than standing behind a counter, selling stockings to women," said Jimmy.

"It ain't such a bad job," admitted the Lizard "if a guy ain't too swelled up. Some of 'em make a pretty good thing out of it, what with their tips and short changing--Oh, there are lots of little ways to get yours at Feinheimer's."

"I see, "said Jimmy; "but don't he pay any wages?"

"Oh, sure," replied the Lizard; "you get the union scale."

"When do I go to work?"

"Go around and see him tomorrow morning. He will put you right to work."

And so the following evening the patrons of Feinheimer's Cabaret saw a new face among the untidy servitors of the establishment--a new face and a new figure, both of which looked out of place in the atmosphere of the basement resort.
 
 

To Be Continued...