nd somehow you make everything you touch mean something it never
meant before. You have made me feel that I would be about twice the man
I am if I had spent the time I have wasted in plain jazzing around,
hunting Cotyledon or trap-door spiders' nests."

"I get you," said Linda. "It's the difference between a girl reared in
an atmosphere of georgette and rouge, and one who has grown up in the
canyons with the oaks and sycamores. One is natural and the other is
artificial. Most boys prefer the artificial."

"I thought I did myself," said Donald, "but today has taught me that I
don't. I think, Linda, that you would make the finest friend a fellow
ever had. I firmly and finally decline to fight with you; but for God's
sake, Linda, tell me how I can beat that little cocoanut-headed Jap."

Linda slammed down the lid to the lunch box. Her voice was smooth and
even but there was battle in her eyes and she answered decisively:
"Well, you can't beat him calling him names. There is only one way on
God's footstool that you can beat him. You can't beat him legislating
against him. You can't beat him boycotting him. You can't beat him with
any tricks. He is as sly as a cat and he has got a whole bag full of
tricks of his own, and he has proved right here in Los Angeles that
he has got a brain that is hard to beat. All you can do, and be a man
commendable to your own soul, is to take his subject and put your brain
on it to such purpose that you cut pigeon wings around him. What are you
studying in your classes, anyway?"

"Trigonometry, Rhetoric, Ancient History, Astronomy," answered Donald.

"And is your course the same as his?" inquired Linda.

"Strangely enough it is," answered Donald. "We have been in the same
classes all through high school. I think the little monkey--"

"Man, you mean," interposed Linda.

"'Man,'" conceded Donald. "Has waited until I selected my course all the
way through, and then he has announced what he would take. He probably
figured that I had somebody with brains back of the course I selected,
and that whatever I studied would be suitable for him."

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Linda. "They are quick; oh! they are
quick; and they know from their cradles what it is that they have in
the backs of their heads. We are not going to beat them driving them to
Mexico or to Canada, or letting them monopolize China. That is merely
temporizing. That is giving them fertile soil on which to take the best
of