"Get out!" Baggs insisted.
The shape heaved up obscurely and the boy sent him reeling through the door. French Janin sank with weary relief on the straw and bagging. He grasped the thick young arm above him.
"We won't be long in this," he declared; "diamond studs!"
He fell asleep instantly, with his fingers caught in Harry Baggs' sleeve. The latter, with the supreme egotism of youth, of a single ambition, loosened the hand and moved out of the narrow confinement of the shanty. He wanted space, the sky, into which to sing his imaginary triumphant songs.
The next day moved toward its end without arresting incident. Janin and Harry Baggs had walked to the public road, where they stood leaning against the rail fence. The smoke from Baggs' pipe uprose in unbroken spheres; the evening was definitely hot. French Janin said:
"In the town to-day I asked about that house here at the bend. It seems he's got money; comes for a couple of months in the spring—just like us—and then goes to Europe like as not. Perhaps he knows a voice."
The blind man fell silent, contemplative.
"Trouble is," he broke out fretfully, "we've got nothing to sing. That about the 'damn old nigger' won't do. You ought to know something like the Serenade.
"Well," he added after a moment, "why not? I could teach you the words—it's Italian; you've nearly got the air. It's all wrong and backward; but this isn't the Con-
