professional assets that could not be gainsaid. And so the story was flashed on the front page of every newspaper in the country, with the result that father dug another pit. And so tale succeeded tale. Fred grew to accept most of them with large dashes of salt. Not that he doubted the broader strokes with which the effects were achieved, but he mistrusted that many of the finer shadings had been discreetly painted out. He was learning that there was nothing so essentially untruthful as a studied veracity... Had not he tricked himself with just such carefully heightened details? What he had mistaken for a background of solid truth had proved nothing but pasteboard scenery flooded with a semblance of reality achieved by skillful manipulation of spotlights. He had been satisfied with the illusion because he had wished for nothing better. And at this moment he was more desolate than any in this sad company, because he seemed the only one who had lost the art of escaping into a world of lies. He had no more spotlights to manipulate. He sat in a gloomy playhouse and he heard only confused voices coming from the stage. He was not even sorry for himself. Whether he was sorry for others he could not yet determine. One afternoon at the close of the first week, as he was walking back to Ward 1 with Monet, following one of these inevitable experience meetings, he turned to the youth and said: "You have been here three times now. Have _you_ never thought of escape?" Monet shrugged. "Yes ... in a way. But I'm no great hand at doing things alone." They walked on in silence. Finally Fred spoke. "Suppose you and I try it sometime? ... It will give us something to think about... But we'll go slow. It will just be a game, you understand." Monet's eyes lit up and his breath came quickly between his parted lips. "You're splendid to me!" he cried. "But the others--you seem to hate them. Why?" Fred kicked a fallen branch out of his path. "They whine too much!" he muttered. The boy was right, he _did_ hate them!