enny for that day, you have
some idea of what the struggle was costing Rosie. A week's wages seemed
in a fair way of being eaten up in a few days. It was a fearful drain on
her resources, but anything, Rosie told herself, to keep him out of the
clutches of the Slattery gang!

By the third day his back was dry and peeling. After dinner, as Rosie
was coming home from the grocery, she found him at the front gate
boasting about it to Joe Slattery.

Rosie interrupted politely: "Jackie, will you come into the house a
minute? I got something to ask you."

Jack looked at her kindly. "All right, Rosie. You go on in and I'll be
in in a minute."

The dismissal was so friendly that Rosie could not gainsay it. She
hurried around to the back door and then rushed through the house to the
front door, which she slipped open wide enough to see and to hear what
was going on at the gate. Joe Slattery's voice carried distinctly.

"Say, Jack, what do you say to goin' down now? Aw, come on! Let's."

Rosie did not have to ask herself what Joe Slattery was proposing; she
knew only too well. Breathless, she awaited Jack's answer. It came with
scarcely an instant's hesitation.

"All right. Let's."

Jack was out of the gate and off before Rosie could push open the front
door.

"Jackie! Jackie! Where you going? Wait for Rosie!"

"Me and Joe got to go down and see a fella. We'll be back soon, won't
we, Joe?"

"Sure we will, Rosie. We'll be back in ten minutes."

Rosie shook her head reproachfully. "Jackie, Jackie, you're telling
Rosie a story, you know you are! You're going swimming and you promised
me you wouldn't! Oh, Jackie, how can you, after the nickel I gave you
this morning, and the seven cents yesterday, and the nickel the day
before, and the nickel of the first day you went with Joe? Oh, Jackie,
how can you take poor Rosie's money and then act that way?"

Jack had nothing to say, but Joe Slattery was able to answer for him.

"Aw, go on, Rosie O'Brien--Jack's goin' in swimmin' if he wants to! I
guess you ain't his boss! Come on, Jack!"

Joe threw his arm about Jack's shoulder and together they marched off.

Rosie put forth one last effort: "Jackie O'Brien, you listen here: If
you go swimming with Joe Slattery, I----" She searched about frantically
for some threat sufficiently terrifying. She paused a moment, then hit
upon something which, a few months earlier, would have worked like
magic. "If you do, _I'll never button y