ng out of the darkness at each puff. He was no longer the
useless Slops Barnett, good only to fetch and carry the sweaters of
the team, but Barnett, man of the world, versed in deadly practices.

"I say, Slops----"

"Hist--lower."

"I say, Slops, what would they do if they caught us?"

"Bounce us."

"For good?"

"Sure! P. D. Q."

The cigarette suddenly had a new delight to Dink. He was even tempted
to inhale a small, very small puff, but immediately conquered this
enthusiastic impulse.

"Isn't this the gay life, though?" said Slops carelessly.

"You bet," said Dink.

From down the flue came three distinct taps.

"That's the Gutter Pup signaling," said Slops, putting his finger
over Dink's mouth. "Bundy is snooping around. Mum's the word."

Presently, as Dink sat there in the darkness, trying desperately to
breathe noiselessly, the sound of slipping footsteps was heard in the
hall. Slops' hand closed over his. The steps stopped directly outside
their door, waited a long moment and went on.

"Bundy?" said Dink in a whisper.

"Yes."

"Why did he stop?"

"He's got me spotted. He's seen the nicotine on my finger," said
Slops, showing a finger under a sudden glow of his cigarette.

A half-hour later when Dink crept up the stairs, homeward bound, he
swelled with a new sensation. Yesterday was months away; then he was a
boy, now that he had smoked up a cold-air ventilator, with Bundy
outwitted by the door, he had aged with a jump--he must be at last a
man.

The next week he added to his stature by going to P. Lentz's room for
a midnight session of the national game, where, after a titanic
struggle of three hours, he won the colossal sum of forty-eight cents.

Having sunk to these depths he began to listen to the Sunday sermons
with a thrill of personal delight--there being not the slightest
doubt that they were directly launched at him. Sometimes he wondered
how the Doctor and The Roman could remain ignorant of the extent of
his debauches, his transgressions were so daring and so complete. He
stood shivering up the Trenton road, under the shadow of an icy trunk,
of Sunday mornings, and met Blinky, the one-eyed purveyor of illicit
cigarettes and the forbidden Sunday newspapers, which had to be
wrapped around his body and smuggled under a sweater.

Secretly he rubbed iodine on his fingers to simulate the vicious stain
of nicotine that was such a precious ornament to Slops' squat fingers.
Only one thing