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By Root 1511 0

over the place. Helen Borax, with her nose in the air, like she was trying to avoid an ugly smell. Mrs. Dennis P. Gorman, with a young kid carrying a package of her groceries that was too heavy for him. Studs got the gob of tobacco out just in the nick of time. She stopped and asked him how his dear mother was. She said he should be sure and tell her and his father to telephone them sometimes, and to come over for tea. And she asked him how he was enjoying the summer. Dorothy was just doing fine. She was very busy with her music, and she was going to summer school at Englewood, because she wanted to do the four years high school in three. And she said that Mr. Robinson, head master of the troop of boy scouts in the neighborhood, had been over to her house the other evening, and he talked about getting more boys in his organization, because that kept them out of mischief. The boy scouts, she explained, were an excellent organization, which made gentlemen out of boys, gave them opportunities for clean, organized fun and sport, and they taught boys to do all sorts of kind deeds like helping blind ladies across the street. The little boy helping her with groceries was a boy scout, and his good deed every day was to carry her groceries home; and he wouldn’t take a penny for it. And her husband said that the boy scouts gave boys preliminary military training and discipline so that it would be easier for them later on in the army, if they were called to defend their country, as they might have to with that old Kaiser trying to conquer the world. She expected to see Studs and all the other boys on Indiana Avenue join the boy scouts. She started to move on, and said in parting:

“Now, do tell your dear mother and your father to come and see us, and now don’t you forget to, like little boys often do.”

The boy scout struggled after her with the bundle that was too heavy for him. Studs watched them, and thought unprintable things about old lady Gorman.

He stacked some more tobacco in his mug. He sat there. He put on a show to please himself, and imagined that everybody noticed him. He tired of his tobacco juice spitting contest, and quit. He watched snotnosed Phil Rolfe, the twelve-year-old little pest, tear after a motor truck heading north. The runt got his hitch, even though Studs yelled after him to confuse him, and wished that he’d break his kike neck. Old man Cohen, dirty, bearded, paused and accusingly asked Studs if he had seen Davey. Studs said no. Studs felt sorry for Davey, with an old man like that. He sat there.

Nate shuffled by, and, seeing Studs, came over. Nate was a toothless, graying little man, with an insane stare in his smallish black eyes. He wore a faded and unpressed green suit that had cobwebs on it and a thick, winter cap of the kind that teamsters wore.

“What’s on your mind, Nate?” Studs asked, using the same tone and manner that the older guys around Bathcellar’s pool room used with him.

Nate said he was getting some new French post cards, and told Studs that he’d sell them for a dime apiece. They were some pictures. Oh, boy! They showed everything. Studs said that he’d take a dozen or two when Nate brought them around. Nate tried to collect in advance, but Studs was no soap for that. Nate started to shuffle away and Studs asked him where the fire was.

“Work, my boy! I was jus’ tellin’ myself about the chicken I made lay eggs today. I was deliverin’ some groceries over on South Park Avenoo, and this chicken was the maid. See! Well! Well, I delivers my groceries, and she says the missus ain’t in, and she looks at me, you know the way a chicken looks at a guy!”

Nate winked, leered and poked Studs in the ribs expressively. He continued:

“She says I should leave the groceries, and you know that ain’t good business, so I calls ole man Hirschfield, but he says it’s o. k. So I leaves the groceries. She tanks me, and she says she has jus’ made a cup of tea, an’ I should siddown and have one wid her. She was a looker, so I takes the tea wid her, and we gets to barbering about one ting an’ anoder, about one