y with Dickie?" she asked.

"Not if it's going to deal you any misery, little girl."

"You're _very_ kind to me."

He put up his hand. "That's all right, Miss Sheila," he said. "That's all
right. It's a real pleasure and comfort to me to have you here and I'll
try to shape things so they'll suit you--and Momma too. Trust _me_. But
don't you ask me to put any faith in Dickie's upper story. I've climbed
up there too often. I'll give up my plan to go round there to-morrow
and--" He paused grimly.

"And bawl him out?" suggested Sheila with one of her Puckish impulses.

"Hump! I was going a little further than that. He would likely have done
the bawlin'. But don't you worry yourself about Dickie. He's safe for
this time--so long's you don't blame me, or--The Aura."

His voice on the last word suffered from one of its cracks. It was as
though it had broken under a load of pride and tenderness.

Sheila saw for a moment how it was with him. To every man his passion and
his dream: to Sylvester Hudson, his Aura. More than wife or child, he
loved his bar. It was a fetish, an idol. To Sheila's fancy Dickie
suddenly appeared the sacrifice.

CHAPTER VI

THE BAWLING-OUT

Dickie's room in The Aura Hotel was fitted in between the Men's Lavatory
and the Linen Room. It smelt of soiled linen and defective plumbing.
Also, into its single narrow window rose the dust of ashes, of old rags
and other refuse thrown light-heartedly into the back yard, which not
being visible from the street supplied the typical housewife of a
frontier town with that relaxation from any necessity to keep up an
appearance of economy and cleanliness so desirable to her liberty-loving
soul. The housekeeper at The Aura was not Mrs. Hudson, but an enormously
stout young woman with blonde hair, named Amelia Plecks. She was so
tightly laced and booted that her hard breathing and creaking were
audible all over the hotel. When Dickie woke in his narrow room after his
moonlight adventure, he heard this heavy breathing in the linen room and,
groaning, thrust his head under the pillow. With whatever bitterness his
kindly heart could entertain, he loathed Amelia. She took advantage of
the favor of Sylvester and of her own exalted position in the hotel to
taunt and to humiliate him. His plunge under the pillow did not escape
her notice.

"Ain't you up yet, lazybones?" she cried, rapping on the wall. "You
won't get no breakfast. It's half-past seven. Who's a