of wages, and one of themselves. He forgave them with an abstracted smile that carried him into a City Hall train instead of the one which he should have taken to the Battery.
He arrived at his rooms for supper, late but jubilant, with a water-melon which he had bought to celebrate his success; and he was met at the door of the dining-room by an equally jubilant announcement from Conroy that he, too, had found work—in the shipping department of a wholesale grocery. "Answering fake advertisements—that's not the way! I just went from one door to another, all along the street, asking for something to do. They gave me this job when they found out I knew how to put addresses on boxes and barrels, with a brush—you know—the way they print them." He had learned that art in his father's warehouse. "What did you get, Don?"
"I'll tell you—some day. It's a secret."
"What is it?"
"Never mind," he laughed. "I met someone. You'll see." He plumped his water-melon on the table. "Look at that!"
Pittsey struck an attitude. "The first fruits of honest labour! Gee! Let us gorge."
They gorged. With the appetites of youth and the sauce of their new enthusiasm, they ate bacon and fried eggs for a summer dinner, laughing and talking as if they were on a picnic, making uncouth gurgles as they devoured the water-melon, and shooting the seeds out the window, by squeezing them between thumb and forefinger, in a hilarious trial of skill.
