solated individual,
and he must have his little zone of quiet round him. Why in the world he
should ever have married...!

I never knew him to show gratitude for anything given him by his
parents. On the other hand, I never heard him ask them for anything. He
possessed none of the little ingenuities by which boys sometimes secure
a bit of pocket-money. If he wanted anything, he went without it until
it was offered. Frankly, he seldom had to wait long.

Not that what came was always the right thing. He showed me his
fountain-pen--one of the early half-failures--with some disdain. He
always carried a number of things in his pocket, but never the pen. I
myself tried it one day, and it went well enough; I should have been
glad to have it for my own. But steel pens sufficed him; save once, when
I saw him, in a high mood, experimenting fantastically with a quill one.

He cared no more about his clothes than any of the rest of us. He never
laid any real stress on them at any time of life. He developed early a
notion of the sufficiency of interior furnishings; mere external
upholstery never quite secured his interest. I heard his father once or
twice complain of his looking careless and shabby. He waited with
equanimity until his father could take him to the clothier's. He asked
but one thing; that there should be no indulgence in sartorial
novelties at his expense. And I never met a sedater taste in neckties.

Three or four were hanging over the gas-jet, close to the window; they
were all dark blues or grays, and most of them frayed. He expected a new
one about Christmas; no hurry.

From that window, across the back yard, we saw Johnny McComas, in a
bright new red tie, busy at his own window. I waved my hand, and he
waved back. Raymond looked at him, but made no special sign. Johnny was
packing up his specimens and his postage-stamps, preparatory to the
family hegira, though neither of us knew.

VI

Raymond, who might have asked for almost anything, asked for nothing.
Johnny, who was in position to ask for next to nothing, asked for almost
everything. He was constantly teasing his parents, so far as my
observation went; and his teasing was a form of criticism. "You are not
doing the right thing by me"--such might have seemed his plaint. He was
beginning to spread, to reach out: acquisitiveness and assimilativeness
were to be his two watchwords. He hankered after the externalities; he
wanted "things." If it was only a