Mr. Kenoke's going to take it!"

Minnie, a freckle-faced girl, was busily chewing gum and watching the
spectacle. She indifferently replied, "Yea," and craned her neck away
to focus some new development in the fire fight.

Lucy at once ignored her.

"Say, that was great, all right! I'm much obliged, I'm sure. That'll
mean something to me." She was looking straight at Hiram. Now she
hesitated, then, a bit flustered, concluded, "That was all right."

Hiram grinned and bobbed his head.

She looked at him in confusion a little longer, then turned to Minnie.

"Goodness! I must get back in," she said hurriedly.

Still Minnie gave no heed, and Lucy faced Hiram once more.

"I said I'd tell you about it, didn't I? Well, I will--that is, if you
care?"

Hiram bobbed his head again.

She looked through the jeweler's window at a small brass clock.

"Gracious! Can that clock be right? It's after eleven! Say, listen:
I'm going off watch at twelve. If you'll be here I'll tell you then."

"Yes, ma'am--I'll be here."

"All right. Good-by. Much obliged, I'm sure."

She squeezed back of Minnie, and scampered through the restaurant door.

Hiram stood watching the streams of water--that is, he looked that way.

CHAPTER VII

HIRAM, THE BUTTERFLY

"Mother, I've come home to die!" gasped Playmate Tweet.

He was seated in one of the yellow chairs near a window of the lounging
room. He had dropped his newspaper and was staring at Hiram Hooker as
he strode through the door.

Hiram seated himself on the edge of a chair and grinned uncomfortably.

The ordeal of appearing before Tweet in his new clothes, at first
poignantly dreaded, had been absent from his thoughts for the past
hour. Standing there before the jeweler's store after Lucy Dalles had
left him, tingling blissfully in every vein, the mundane thought that
Tweet was probably awaiting him in the lodging house had obtruded
itself and hurried him up the street. As he opened the lounging-room
door he thought once more of his clothes.

Tweet rubbed his eyes and looked again. "Christopher Columbus!" he
added in an undertone. He blinked his eyes three times, then threw
himself back and laughed uproariously.

For a half minute he shook in his chair, then got up, wiped his twisted
nose with his handkerchief, and came over to his half resentful charge.

"Well, Hiram," he said with a chuckle, "how much did they set us back?"

"Set us back?"

"I