e directed a searching
look to the bare head at his elbow. "Other days, _you_ take care of said
ole man," he returned.

Johnnie nodded. "I like him."

The silence that followed was embarrassing. He knew One-Eye was watching
him. But not liking to glance up, he was unable to judge of his
companion's attitude. So he began again, changing the subject. "Cis is
awful pretty," he confided. "Once she was a May Queen in Central Park
for her class at school, only it wasn't in May, and she had all the ice
cream she could eat. Mrs. Kukor made her a white dress for that time,
and I made some art'ficial vi'lets for 'round her hair. Oh, she looked
fine! And she saw the Prince of Wales when he was in N'York and ever
since she's liked just him."

One-Eye took the cigar from his mouth. "It'd be a grand match for her,"
he conceded. His tone implied that the alliance with Royalty was by no
means a remote possibility.

"A-a-a-aw!" scoffed Johnnie, flashing up at One-Eye a wise smile. "All
the girls at Cis's fac'try seen him, too, and they all like him just the
same as she does. But the Prince, he's got t' marry a Princess."

One-Eye agreed. "Pretty tough," he observed sympathetically, and went
back to his cigar.

"So Cis'll have t' marry a movin'-picture actor," concluded Johnnie;
"--or a cowboy."

At that the cigar fairly popped from One-Eye's countenance. "A cowboy!"
he cried, the green eye dancing. "W'y, that'd be better'n a Prince!"

"It would?" Johnnie considered the idea.

"Certainly would--t' _my_ way of thinkin'." In their brief acquaintance
One-Eye had never before shown such interest, such animation.

"How d' you mean?"

"I mean," answered One-Eye, stoutly, "that cowboys is _noble_ fellers!"

Before Johnnie could argue the matter further, or ask any one of the
thousand questions that he would have liked to get explained regarding
cowboys, the driver interrupted to demand how much farther southward he
was expected to go; and as Chambers Street was even then just ahead, the
eastern turn was made at once, which set Johnnie off along a new line of
thought--his coming ordeal.

And this ordeal was not the meeting with Big Tom, which he dreaded
enough, but which he believed would not have to be endured for at least
some hours; it was the having to face, in company with this rich and
important acquaintance, that gang of boys who so delighted to taunt him.

Anxiously his gray eyes searched ahead of the taxicab, which was