with young men: they hung over the small portico from steps to ridge, they bulged from every window and sat astride of the dormer windows in the roof. Before them on the street a camera had been set up and was covered, all save the snout, by a black rubber cloth, backward from which projected the body and limbs of the photographer.
The latter, Elim realized, was one of a traveling band that took pictures of whatever, on their way, promised sufficient pecuniary return. Here the operator had been in luck—he would sell at least thirty photographs at perhaps fifty cents each. Harry Kaperton, a great swell, was in his window with his setter, Spot; his legs, clad in bags with tremendous checks and glossy boots, hung outward. On the veranda were Hinkle and Ben Willing, the latter in a stovepipe hat; others wore stovepipes set at a rakish angle on one ear. They were all irrepressibly gay, calling from roof to ground, each begging the photographer to focus on his own particular charm.
Perhaps fifty cents—Elim Meikeljohn would have liked a place in the picture; he would like to possess one, to keep it as a memento of the youthful life that flowed constantly about him, but the probable cost was prohibitive. He even wished, as he paused before making his way up the crowded veranda steps, that some one would ask him to stay and have his picture taken with the rest. He delayed, hoping for the mere formality of this friendliness. But it was not forthcoming. He had felt that it wouldn't be; he had divined the careless silence with which the men moved aside for him to mount. There was even a muttered allusion to his famous Scotch thrift, contained in a sharper word. Elim didn't mind—actively. He had
