go from San Francisco. He
tried to remember all that he had ever heard about the various
paradises for sportsmen, and he discovered that he could not remember
anything except that they were all in the mountains, and that Tahoe
was a big lake, and lots of people went there in the summer. He
crossed Tahoe off the list, because he did not want to land in some
fashionable resort and bump into some one he knew. Besides, thirty-one
dollars would not last long at a summer resort--and he remembered he
would not have thirty-one dollars when he landed; he would have what
was left after he had paid his fare from San Francisco, and had eaten
once or twice.

Straightway he became hungry, perhaps because a porter came down the
aisle announcing the interesting fact that breakfast was now being
served in the diner--fourth car rear. Jack felt as though he could
eat about five dollars' worth of breakfast. He was only a month or so
past twenty-two, remember, and he himself had not committed any crime
save the crime of foolishness.

He slid farther down upon his spine, pulled his nice new sombrero
lower on the bridge of his tanned nose, and tried to forget that back
there in the diner they would give him grapefruit on ice, and after
that rolled oats with thick yellow cream, and after that ham and eggs
or a tenderloin steak or broiled squab on toast; and tried to remember
only that the check would make five dollars look sick. He wished he
knew how much the fare would be to some of those places where he meant
to lose himself. With all that classy-looking paraphernalia he would
not dare attempt to beat his way on a freight. He had a keen sense of
relative values; dressed as he was he must keep "in the part." He must
be able to show that he had money. He sighed heavily and turned his
back definitely upon a dining-car breakfast. After that he went to
sleep.

At noon he was awake and too ravenous to worry so much over the
possibility of being arrested for complicity in a murder. He collided
violently with the porter who came down the aisle announcing luncheon.
He raced back through two chair cars and a tourist sleeper, and he
entered the dining car with an emphasis that kept the screen door
swinging for a full half minute. He tipped the waiter who came to fill
his water glass, and told him to wake up and show some speed. Any
waiter will wake up for half a dollar, these hard times. This one
stood looking down over Jack's shoulder while he wro