then, Mrs. Bartender--a blonde, bored,
novel-reading little lady in splendid array. First of all, as Pattie
Batch observed, she yawned; secondly, she yawned again. And she was
about to attempt the extraordinary feat of yawning a third time--and
doubtless would have achieved it--when her washed blue eyes chanced to
fall on the fawn-skin coat, with its lining of golden-brown silk
shimmering in the lamplight. She picked it up, of course, in a bored
sort of way; and she was positively on the very verge of being
interested in it when--would you believe it?--she attacked the third
yawn--or the third yawn attacked her--and however it was, the yawn was
accomplished with such dexterity, such certainty, and with such
satisfaction to the lady, that she quite forgot to look at the fawn-skin
cloak again.

"By George, she's tired!" Pattie Batch exclaimed to herself.

Pattie Batch sighed: she sighed twice, in point of fact--the second
sigh, a great, long one, discovering itself somewhere very deep
within--and then she went home disconsolate.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

_THE MAKING OF A MAN_

Soon after dark, John Fairmeadow, with a pack on his broad back, swung
from the Jumping Jimmy trail into the clearing of Swamp's End, ceasing
only then his high, vibrant song, and came striding down the huddled
street, a big man in rare humour with life, labour and the night. A
shadow--not John Fairmeadow's shadow--was in cautious pursuit; but of
this dark, secret follower John Fairmeadow was not aware. Near the Cafe
of Egyptian Delights he stumbled. The pursuing Shadow gasped; and John
Fairmeadow was so mightily exercised for his pack that he ejaculated in
a fashion most unministerial, but recovered his footing with a jerk, and
doubtless near turned pale with apprehension. But the pack was safe--the
delicate contents, whatever they were, quite undisturbed. John
Fairmeadow gently adjusted the pack, stamped the snow from his soles, as
a precautionary measure, wiped the frost from his brows and eyelids, in
the same cautious wisdom, and, still followed by the Shadow, strode on,
but with infinitely more care. At the Red Elephant--Pale Peter's glowing
saloon--he turned in. The bar, as always, in these days, gave the young
apostle to those unrighteous parts a roaring welcome. It was become the
fashion: big, bubbling, rosy John Fairmeadow, with the square jaw, the
frank, admonitory tongue, the tender and persuasive heart, the
compete