e is a flyer, isn't she?"

"Dolly who?" I asked.

"Oh! just Dolly; that does." He looked away, looked back, hesitated,
and swallowed. I, feeling that he perhaps needed the assistance a man
sometimes requires of a woman, encouragement, smiled at him.

"You wouldn't dance this, I suppose?" he said.

"Certainly," I answered.

We danced. He was a nice boy, very much in earnest, very much afraid of
tiring me, very much afraid of letting me go, too shy to stop, until I
suggested it, for which act of consideration he seemed grateful.

He told me he had five brothers, all older than himself; that he never
had new trousers, always the other boys' cut down; that he liked school;
wanted a bicycle more than anything in the world--of his very own, of
course; wanted a pony of his very own; wanted a dog of his very own. He
hadn't anything of his very own.

I said I supposed he thought his eldest brother very lucky.

"Because of the trousers?" he asked.

I said, "Well, yes, I suppose he has the new ones."

"Well," he said, "you see he doesn't. That's the chowse of the whole
thing. He is the eldest, but you see Dick's the biggest, so he gets the
new trousers. It is hard, isn't it?"

I said it was indeed.

"The best of it is," he said, "I am catching jackup. He is in an awful
wax. I shouldn't be surprised if I were bigger than him next holidays.
Do you like dancing? I simply loathe it--not with you, I don't mean I."

He told me many other confidences, and I was really sorry when he
remembered, with an evident pang, that he had to dance with that "rum
little kid over there."

I was quite certain that he would never break a promise. I could picture
him going through life always keeping promises, rashly made, no doubt.
I wondered what he would talk to girls about at dances years
hence--trousers? Hardly. By that time he would have trousers of his very
own, and they would cease, in consequence, to be things of interest.

He would be a soldier--of that I could have no doubt. He was the kind of
boy England wants and can still get, thank God! say pessimists what they
will.

While I was awaiting my Dolly dance, I came upon a small, disconsolate
boy.

"I'm looking for an empty partner," he said.

I captured a passing girl, very small, and they danced away together.
The boy I could see was very energetic, the girl was very small and fat.
As they passed me I heard her say, "I--can't--go--so--fast!"

"Very sorry," said the sma