"There is no question about it hurting; it has already hurt. You see there are so many who want to believe things of that kind about the Klan, and they use this episode to work on the fears of others." "Excuse me a moment, please." She left the room and soon called him to come into the dining room. "I ate a lunch very hurriedly tonight and am hungry; won't you eat a lunch with me?" "With the greatest of pleasure." They sat down to the table together, and while they ate Harold did most of the talking. Ruth's mind was preoccupied. When they had finished eating Ruth picked up the wish bone and held a prong of it toward Harold. "Let's wish," she said, "the one who gets the biggest piece wins, and gets his wish." "All right," he replied, taking hold of the prong. "I tell you, let's have it that the one who wins shall have his three best wishes." "Could one little chicken wishbone secure so much desire?" he asked. "Yes, if we both agree to it, it can." They both pulled and the bone broke close to his fingers. "There, I won. I'll get my wishes!" she exclaimed. "Tell me what you wished?" "Oh, no; they wouldn't come true if I were to tell." "Won't you ever tell me?" he asked. "Yes, when they come true." When he had told her good-night she called after him, "Good luck on the trip." His spirits were all together different when he entered his room for the second time that night. He set his alarm so that he might not miss the early train. Harold had a habit of reading something every night before retiring. He picked up a volume of "The Rhymes of Ironquill" and read a few short poems, selecting them at random. He turned to Ironquill's version of Aesop's Fables. He read "The Swell," Fable No. 9. "On the walk a hat did lie, And a gallus chap sailed by, And he cut a lively swell-- He was clerk in a hotel." "So, he gave that hat a kick, And he came across a brick-- Now upon a crutch he goes, Minus half a pound of toes." Moral. "When you see a person thrown By misfortune or by vice, Help him thrice or seven times thrice; Help him up or let alone. If you give the man a kick You may stumble on a brick, Or a stone. Fate is liable to frown, And the best of us go down; And in just a little while She is liable to smile. And the bad luck and the vice Seem to scatter in a trice, And to hunt their holes like mice. And the man you tried to kick Now has changed into a brick." "I believe Fate is beginning to smile," he mused, "and here's hoping that the bad luck will scatter in a trice, and it may be that some of these fellows will find some day that the man they tried to kick has turned into a brick." With this pleasing thought on his mind he retired and was soon fast asleep. Chapter XVI