uite reasonably to a front
window the day the newcomers' furniture was uncrated and carried
in--"seems very nice." She hoped, if it developed that they really were
desirable that they would be permanent. Los Angeles was coming to have
such a floating population....

Honor and Jimsy observed the boy from across the street, a slim, modish
person. "Gee," said Jimsy, "it must be fierce to be lame!--to have your
body not--not do what you tell it to! I wonder what he does? He can't do
_anything_, can he?" His eyes were deep with honest pity.

"Oh, I suppose he sort of fills in with other things," Honor conceded.
"I expect, if people can't do the things that count most, they go in for
other things. He seems awfully keen about his two cars."

"They're peaches, both of 'em," said Jimsy without envy.

"And of course he has time to be a wonder at school, if he wants to be."

"Yep. Looks as if he might be a shark at it." He grinned. "Slow on his
feet but fast in the head."

"Muzzie's going to call on his mother, and then we'd better ask him to
supper, hadn't we? He must be horribly lonesome."

"I'll float over and see him," the last King suggested, "and sort of
size him up. Give him the once-over. We don't want to start anything
unless he's O. K. Might as well go now, I guess."

"All right. Come in afterward and tell me what you think of him."

He nodded and swung off across the street. It was an hour before he came
back, glowing. "Gee, Skipper, I'm strong for that kid! Name's Van Meter,
Carter Van Meter. He's got a head on him, that boy! He's been
everywhere and seen everything--three times abroad--Canada, Mexico! You
ought to hear him talk--not a bit up-stagy, no side at all, but
interesting! I asked him for supper, Sunday night. You'll be crazy about
him--all the bunch will!" Thus Jimsy King on the day Carter Van Meter
limped into his life; thus Jimsy King through the years which followed,
worshiping humbly the things he did not have in himself, belittling his
own gifts, enlarging his own lacks, glorifying his friend. He had never
had a deeply intimate boy friend before; the team was his friend, the
squad; Honor had sufficed for a nearer tie. It was to be different, now;
a sharing. She was to resent a little in the beginning, before she, too,
came under the spell of the boy from the East.

Mrs. Lorimer came smiling back from her call. "_Very_ nice," she told
her husband and her daughter, "really charming. And her thing