to America again, and cut
out a career for myself. I'm going to be a doctor and as good a doctor
as ever lived if study will do it. _That's_ the monument I mean to
give my father and my mother."

He gave a jerk of the head toward Velo, who sat upright before him.

"How does that strike you, old top?" he asked and climbed down into the
First Aid pit.

Left alone, Velo sat thinking. Then he rolled over on his face and
beat the earth with his fists. Once more the films flew along, in the
moving picture of his mind. He saw the wealth of the Zaidos
house--gold, gold! a _stream_ of gold flowing and flowing _away_ from
him! He saw the bright lights, the dancing, drinking, all the
carousels he had so often dreamed of, slipping out of his grasp. What
possible hope could a fellow like himself have of keeping on the right
side of anyone like Zaidos? He smiled when he thought what Zaidos
would say if he could know or guess what Velo's life had been. What
would he do if he ever found out how he had treated Zaidos' long
suffering father? And Velo did not try to deceive himself. He knew
perfectly well that back there in Saloniki, there were people who would
jump at a chance to get even with him, and who would give Zaidos an
account of meanness and wrong-doing that would cause him to kick Velo
out of the house.

Velo began to hate himself for the uncertainty in putting off what to
him was a disagreeable necessity. Once more he went over the
situation. It seemed as though he had gone over it a dozen times, a
million times. It all ended at the blank wall which was Zaidos.
Zaidos _must_ be removed.

Now it is a well-known fact that we are what our thoughts make us. Our
minds are like our houses, our homes. We do not have to entertain
unwelcome guests. We do not have to invite them there. It may be that
we feel obliged to treat everyone whom we meet at our games or in
school or at work with common politeness. No matter how we despise a
man, we can't very well go up to him in the street and say, "Here, I
don't like your style," and proceed to knock him out with a good
right-hander. Naturally it won't do. But we need not give the bounder
the freedom of our homes. So with our thoughts. It is only when we
bring them in and grow intimate with them, and make them part of
ourselves that they begin to harm us.

Velo, too evil and too lazy to close the door of his mind on common
thoughts and low desires, had grown mo