y an electric shock. Before him he saw
another small boy, apparently of his own age, but a little taller, and
light-haired like himself.

"What's your name," asked Keith as soon as he caught his breath.

"Johan," answered the other stolidly, but not unfriendly.

"Have you got another name like me?"

"My name is Johan Peter Gustafsson," was the reply given in the tone of
a lesson painfully learned.

"Where do you live?"

"Right here."

"Not in our house," Keith protested.

"No, down there," Johan explained, pointing to the little side door
leading into the courtyard of one of the corner houses at the Quay.

"What's your father?" Keith continued his cross-examination.

"_Vaktmaestare_" said Johan indifferently.

"So is mine," Keith cried eagerly. "Have you got a bank, too?"

Johan shook his head as if unable to grasp what Keith meant.

"My popsey works in the office down there," he said, "and we live beside
it, and at night I go with popsey when he carries all the mail to the
postoffice."

"Why do you call him popsey," inquired Keith, fascinated by the new word
and wondering if he would dare use it to his own father.

"Because that's what he is," Johan declared.

A few minutes later they were playing together as if they had known each
other for ever. They had just discovered an unusually large and tempting
pin in a crack at the bottom of the gutter, when Keith heard his mother
calling from the window above:

"What are you doing, Keith?"

"Oh, just playing," he replied without looking up, forgetful of
everything but the pin that would not come out of the crack.

"Who is that with you?"

"That is Johan," Keith shouted back triumphantly, "and his papa is a
_vaktmaestare_, too."

"Come right up and let me speak to you," was the insistant rejoinder
from above.

"Oh, please, mamma," the boy pleaded, his voice breaking a little,
"can't I stay just a little longer?"

"You must come at once," his mother commanded.

"Is that your mumsey," Johan asked.

"It is my mamma," Keith retorted, his attention momentarily diverted by
Johan's most peculiar way of referring to his parents.

"Then you had better go," advised the new friend sagely, "or she will
tell your popsey, and then you know what happens to you."

"I think I can come down again, if you wait for me," cried Keith as he
ran into the long dark passageway.

At that moment a cry of "Johan" rose from the lower part of the lane,
and Keith had to