waved an assenting hand--"naturally, after I get started
good."

CHAPTER XIII

On a certain morning in early September Wilbur Cowan idled on River
Street, awaiting a summons. The day was sunny and spacious, yet hardly,
he thought, could it contain his new freedom. Despairing groups of
half-grown humans, still in slavery, hastened by him to their hateful
tasks. He watched them pityingly, and when the dread bell rang, causing
stragglers to bound forward in a saving burst of speed, he halted
leisurely in sheer exultation. The ecstasy endured a full five minutes,
until a last tap of the bell tolled the knell of the tardy. It had been
worth waiting for. This much of his future he had found worth planning.
He pictured the unfortunates back in the old room, breathing chalk dust,
vexed with foolish problems, tormented by discipline. He was never again
to pass a public school save with a sensation of shuddering relief. He
had escaped into his future, and felt no concern about what it should
offer him. It was enough to have escaped.

Having savoured freedom another ten minutes, he sauntered over to the
_Advance_ office as a favour to Sam Pickering. A wastrel printer had the
night before been stricken with the wanderlust, deciding at five-thirty
to take the six-fifty-eight for other fields of endeavour, and Wilbur
Cowan had graciously consented to bridge a possible gap.

He strolled into the dusty, disordered office and eased the worry from
Sam Pickering's furrowed brow by attacking the linotype in spirited
fashion. That week he ran off the two editions of the paper. A spotted
small boy sat across the press bed from him to ink the forms. He
confided impressively to this boy that when the last paper was printed
the bronze eagle would flap its wings three times and scream as a
signal for beer to be brought from Vielhaber's. The boy widened eyes of
utter belief upon him, and Wilbur Cowan once more felt all his years.
But he was still lamentably indecisive about his future, and when a new
printer looked in upon the _Advance_ he stepped aside. Whatever he was
going to make of himself it wouldn't be someone who had to sit down
indoors. He would be slave to no linotype until they were kept in the
open. He told Sam Pickering this in so many words.

The former Mansion's stable at length engaged his wandering fancy. The
stable's old swinging sign--a carefully painted fop with flowing side
whiskers and yellow topcoat swiftly dr