radiation
but far too respectable, much too decorous, and altogether too near home
to be associated with his idea of a good time. Billy's life had been
running so long on high gear that the lower speeds had almost been
forgotten. This was typical of the times rather than a suggestion that
the boy himself exceeded the speed limit. It was the limit which
insisted upon exceeding itself, and he simply extended his pace to keep
up with everything around him,--the limit of yesterday kept becoming the
commonplace of to-day.

In New York Billy always found the limit just enough ahead of what it
was in Boston to give him the additional thrill which added zest to his
life. The very atmosphere seemed charged with a different ozone, filled
with microbes impelling incessant activity. Everything not already in
motion seemed straining at its leash, impatient to dash forward at the
earliest opportunity. No one ever seemed satisfied to where he was, but
hurried onward to somewhere else or something different. It was the city
of unrest but never of discontent, for the changing, kaleidoscopic
conditions came as a result of a demand from those who had the price to
pay. It fascinated Billy, as it fascinates its tens of thousands, and as
he leaned back in the Thatchers' limousine, held up by the lines of
traffic on Fifth Avenue, then dashing forward to make up for lost time
between the intersecting streets, he turned his beaming face toward his
friend and murmured contentedly, "This is the life!"

"The ride home gets worse every time I take it," was Philip's comment.
"If things keep on they will have to make the Avenue a double-decker
street."

"By that time New-Yorkers will ride home in their aeroplanes," Billy
replied. "You can't hold them down by a little thing like congestion."

Billy loved it, and for him the car turned off the Avenue all too soon,
in its final dash for the East Side. He wanted more time between his
arrival at the Grand Central Station and his appearance at the Thatcher
mansion to shake off what he felt to be his Boston provincialism, and to
feel outwardly as well as inwardly the real New-Yorker which he craved
to be.

"What are we doing to-night?" Billy asked as they drew near their
destination.

"I wrote Dad to get tickets for some show. You said you wanted to see
everything in town."

"Great! Merry will go, won't she?"

"I don't know. I can manage Mother and Dad all right, but when it comes
to Merry, that'