"Before?... Say, do I look like a dead one? This isn't a bad habit after you get used to it... So far I've only made the county jails. Some day I suppose I'll graduate... But I'm pretty wise--vagrancy is about all they've ever pinned on me." Fred looked at his new friend curiously. There didn't seem to be anything particularly vicious about the youth. He merely had learned how to get his hands on easy money and jails were an incident in his career. Without being asked, he described his first tilt with the law. He had come, a youth of seventeen, from a country town up North. He had run away from home, to be exact; there was a stepmother or some equally ancient and honorable excuse. He had arrived in San Francisco in January without money or friends or any great moral equipment, and after a week of purposeless bumming he had been picked up by a policeman and charged with vagrancy. The obliging judge who heard his case gave him twenty-four hours to leave town. He went, in company with a professional tramp, upon the brake beams of a freight train that pulled out for Stockton that very night. But at Stockton the train was overhauled by policemen in wait for just these unwelcome strangers from a rival town, and the two were told to go back promptly where they came from. They got into San Francisco more dead than alive, and then the inevitable happened. They were haled before the selfsame judge who had given the youth such an amazing chance to get started right. He treated them both to thirty days in the county jail, and the youth emerged a wiser but by no means a sadder man. He had learned, among other things, that if one were to be jailed one might just as well be jailed for cause. The charge of vagrancy was very inclusive, and a man could skirt very near the edge of felony and still manage to achieve a nominal punishment. He told all this simply, naturally, naively--as if he were entertaining an acquaintance with a drawing-room anecdote. When he finished, Fred inquired: "And how about bail to-night?" The youth shrugged. "Well, I dunno. I sent word to a girl who--" At that moment the attendant appeared again. He had come after the youth--evidently the girl had proved herself. "So long," the boy said to Fred, as he went through the door. "If you've got a dame stuck on you there's always a chance." Fred went over and leaned against the washbasin. His companions had been diverting. In their company he had ceased to think very definitely about his own plight. Now he was alone. He wondered what Helen would do... He put his hand to his cheek--it was still smarting from the blow that had waked his primitive hatred... He was standing in this same position before the washbasin, smoking furiously, when the attendant came for him. "It's past midnight," the man said. "I guess your folks ain't coming." Fred stirred. "No, I guess not," he echoed, with resignation.