e you ought to go to----"

"Corcoran and apologize?" interrupted Hal hotly. "No, I don't. I'd
starve before I'd do that."

"But how about your grandfather, your mother, and Louise?"

"I shan't let them starve, if that's what you mean. You can bet your
life on that," cried Hal. "If anybody goes without it will be myself."

"You seem to be doing it all right."

"How do you know?"

"Don't you suppose I've eyes in my head? You're thin as a rail
already."

"Huh! That's only because I've been chasing round with bundles. I was
too fat, anyway; didn't get enough exercise at the mills."

"Hal Harling!"

"Straight goods, I didn't. Just stood and fed stuff into that loom from
morning till night. You don't call that exercise, do you?"

"I noticed that by night you were often all in, exercise or no
exercise," was the dry response. "Well, you've got to go your own gait,
I guess."

"I'll bet a hat _you_ wouldn't go and bow down to Corcoran."

The thrust told.

"Bow down to him? I'd crack his nut!"

Hal chuckled with satisfaction at his chum's loyalty.

"There you are, you see!" declared he. "You are every whit as rabid as
I am when it comes to the scratch."

"I'm afraid I'm more rabid when things hit you and Louise," murmured
Carl.

The two walked on without speaking, the mind of each busy with the
problem in hand.

Carl's imagination circled every mad avenue of escape from the
Harlings' financial crisis. If only he were rich! If only somebody
would suddenly leave him some money! If only--his brain halted in the
midst of its absurd gyrations.

If he were not rich; if he had no fairy fortune to pass over to Hal and
Louise, what was to hinder him from performing for them a far more
genuine service of friendship and affection? Instead of offering them
money that was dropped into his hand why should he not test out his
real regard for them by earning it? Many a boy his age, aye, younger
than he, earned money. Why should he be free of responsibility when
Hal, who was only a few years older, was weighed down with it?

Just why it had never occurred to him that if he earned money he might
with propriety hand it over to his own hard-working mother is a
question. Often with eyes fixed on the clouds we lose sight of the
things just beneath our noses. Perhaps that was the explanation of
Carl's lack of thought. Be that as it may, certain it was that he
parted from his chum afire with the generous impulse of making a
pe