In the case of Joe Ridder it was distinctly the
former.

At nineteen his knowledge of the tender passion consisted of dynamic
impressions received across the footlights at an angle of forty-five
degrees. Love was something that hovered with the calcium light about
beauty in distress, something that brought the hero from the uttermost
parts of the earth to hurl defiance at the villain and clasp the
swooning maiden in his arms; it was something that sent a fellow down
from his perch in the peanut gallery with his head hot and his hands
cold, and a sort of blissful misery rioting in his soul.

Joe lived in what was known by courtesy as Rear Ninth Street. "Rear
Ninth Street" has a sound of exclusive aristocracy, and the name was a
matter of some pride to the dwellers in the narrow, unpaved alley that
writhed its watery way between two rows of tumble-down cottages, Joe's
family consisted of his father, whose vocation was plumbing, and whose
avocation was driving either in the ambulance or the patrol wagon; his
mother, who had discharged her entire debt to society when she bestowed
nine healthy young citizens upon it; eight young Ridders, and Joe
himself, who had stopped school at twelve to assume the financial
responsibilities of a rapidly increasing family.

Lack of time and the limited opportunities of Rear Ninth Street,
together with an uncontrollable shyness, had brought Joe to his
nineteenth year of broad-shouldered, muscular manhood, with no
acquaintance whatever among the girls. But where a shrine is built for
Cupid and the tapers are kept burning, the devotee is seldom
disappointed.

One morning in October, as Joe was guiding his rickety wheel around the
mud puddles on his way to the cooper shops, he saw a new sign on the
first cottage after he left the alley--"Mrs. R. Beaver, Modiste & Dress
Maker." In the yard and on the steps were a confusion of household
effects, and in their midst a girl with a pink shawl over her head.

So absorbed was Joe in open-mouthed wonder over the "Modiste," that he
failed to see the girl, until a laughing exclamation made him look up.

"Watch out!"

"What's the matter?" asked Joe, coming to a halt.

"I thought maybe you didn't know your wheels was going 'round!" the girl
said audaciously, then fled into the house and slammed the door.

All day at the shops Joe worked as in a trance. Every iron rivet that he
drove into a wooden hoop was duly informed of the romantic occurrence