was no
denying that he was coarse and dull and awkward, but there was a shrewd
gleam in his somewhat bleary eyes, and from time to time he threw out
dark hints about enjoyments and experiences that little boys clinging to
their mother's skirts could never master.

It became a sort of game between them--a game that pleased Johan and
drove Keith to exasperation. It was a game of hide-and-seek. And the
most remarkable feature of it was that, although Keith was dying to
know, he found it impossible to ask any direct questions. His pose was
that he didn't care, and Johan's counter-pose was that he didn't know
what Keith was driving at.

Little by little, however, Keith extracted various stories about those
new friends of Johan's, who lived in one of the neighbouring lanes and
who had a big vacant attic at their disposal. There quite a number of
boys gathered daily, and Johan did his best to impress Keith with the
desperate character of their doings. Girls came to that meeting-place,
too. It was the principal thing, according to Johan--the fact that made
those exploits so deliriously reprehensible. One day Johan was in an
unusually communicative mood.

"Yesterday," he related with great gusto, "Nils got hold of Ellen and
kissed her. And then they crawled into a big empty box when they thought
we didn't see them. And there they stayed ever so long. But Gustaf
crawled up behind the box and peeped. And he saw what they did, and then
he told us."

"What did they do," asked Keith tensely, forgetting his usual reserve.

"Oh, you know," replied Johan teasingly.

"I don't," said Keith stoutly, realizing that it was a dreadful
admission of inferiority. "And I want you to tell me."

For a moment Johan hesitated. Then he shot at Keith a single word--a
verb--that Keith had heard in the lane and among the longshoremen on the
Quay. He knew that it was bad--the worst one of its kind. He knew also
in a vague sort of way that it touched the very heart of the mystery he
was trying to solve. And yet it left him just as ignorant as before.

The bald use of that word by Johan stunned him for a moment. Then his
hot thirst for light brushed all other considerations aside, and he said
almost pleadingly: "Can't you tell me all about it?"

"Oh, everybody knows," said Johan, and his eyes began to wander shiftily
as they always did when he found himself cornered.

"You don't know yourself," Keith taunted him, suddenly grown wise beyond
his o