else. He found it often in the books he read at
home, many of which had been borrowed from the school library. Not
facts--but how different sorts of facts hung together, so to speak. The
school ought to tell him, and sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that
the teachers were trying to tell him this very thing. But they failed
somehow, and the farther he advanced, the more exasperating that
failure became.

He was in his thirteenth year, and he was no longer certain that he
cared to study. But reading was still his dominant passion--reading and
George Murray.

II

Relations with Murray had been resumed on the old basis. Day after day
they walked to and from school together, and hardly ever was their
friendship disturbed by a misunderstanding. In school, too, they spent a
good deal of time in each other's company, and they continued to sit
side by side. Being so much seen together, they gradually came to be
known as "the twins," which pleased Keith tremendously. But once they
had parted for the day at the corner of the Quay and the lane, there was
no more communication between them. And no matter what Keith said or
did, he could never persuade his friend to break that rule.

Then Murray's birthday came along, and he told Keith quite casually that
his mother had promised to let him have a party and invite five of his
schoolmates.

"Will you ask me," Keith blurted out, his eyes shining with eagerness.

"I don't know," said Murray guardedly.

"But I am your best friend in school," Keith protested.

"It depends on mamma," Murray explained, and his voice lacked a little
of its customary complacency.

"Of course, I should like to have you," he added after a pause, but his
words carried no conviction.

Keith was too hard hit to say a word.

A couple of days later, on their way home from school, Murray said
unexpectedly that he and his mother had looked over the school catalogue
the night before, and that his mother had picked the five boys whom he
was to invite. And he started to name them. The first name was that of
Brockert, a boy in their own class.

"But I have never seen you speak to him," Keith interrupted him.

"He is a very fine boy and comes of excellent family," Murray retorted.
Then he enumerated the other four. Only one of them besides Brockert
belonged to their own class.

Little as Keith knew about most of the boys in school, he realized that
all the prospective guests had three things in comm