"Ripping!" answered Billy. "_I'll_ tell you what we'll do.--Hush! Is old Ginger awake?--All right. Well, we'll sneak into the outhouse to-morrow when the cook isn't looking, pinch the puddings out of the copper and chuck 'em in the pond." "Why, Billy, that's just what I was going to say to you. But won't we scald ourselves?" "I've thought of that. We'll get the garden fork and jab it into the puddings. They boil 'em in bags, you know." "There's a better way than that. We'll get in before the copper has begun to boil." "I hadn't thought of that, _but I was just going to_," said Billy. "Yes, that's the way." Enterprises such as these, however, were episodic, and merely serve to show how great souls, born under the same star, and united in the grand trend of their life-directions, share also the minor details of their activity. The seat of our affinities lay deeper. Both Billy and I were persons with an "end" in life, and breathed in common the atmosphere of great designs. We were like two young trees planted side by side on a breezy hill-top. Our roots were in the same soil; our branches swayed to the same rhythm; we heard the same secrets from the whispering winds. We were always on the heights. Few were the days of our companionship when we were not infatuated about something or other; and I sometimes doubt whether even yet I have outgrown the habit, so deep was its spring in my own nature and so strong the reinforcement it received from the influence of Billy. Sometimes we were infatuated about the same thing; and sometimes each of us struck out an independent line of his own; but always we were the victims of one mania or another. At the time this history begins the particular mania that afflicted me was the collecting of tramcar tickets. My friends used to save them for me; I begged them from passengers as they alighted from the cars; I picked them up in the street; and I had over seven thousand collected in a box. I thought that when the sum had risen to ten thousand the goal of my existence would be reached; and it may be said that I lived for little else.