As for Jerome, his tale was a short one, not particularly interesting but having the merit, as hers did not, of a background of fact. Raised on a farm in the central part of the state; poor parents; common school education; lately landed in Dyketon; stopping now at a second-rate boarding-house out on Ninth Street; working for eighteen a week as a bookkeeper at Stout & Furst's clothing store; ambitious to better himself in both these latter regards--that, brought up to date, was young Bracken. Nor was there any special significance in the intimacy which followed between these two. He visited her at more or less regular intervals. Thus early he was shaping his days into a calculated and orderly routine which remained a part of him forever after. She liked him, being at heart kindly and, considering her trade, susceptible to affectionate impulses; he liked her, being lonely, and that substantially was all there was to it. At the end of a year he began his journey up in the world. Mr. Gus Ralph, president of the Ralph State Bank, took him on as an assistant receiving teller at a hundred a month and prospects. Unknown to the newcomer, Mr. Ralph had had his eye on him for some time--a young man of good manners and presumably of good habits, bright, dignified, industrious, discreet, honest--in short, a hustler. Mr. Ralph was on the lookout for that kind. He made a place for the young man, and from the hour when he walked into the counting-house and hung up his hat Jerome was justifying the confidence Mr. Ralph put in him. If he was continuing to sow his wild oats--and privately he was--at least he sowed none during banking hours, nor did any part of his harvesting in public, which was sufficient for his new boss. Mr. Ralph often said he had been a youngster once himself, saying it with an air which indicated that he had been very much of a youngster indeed. At the end of six months more, which would make it about eighteen months in all, young Jerome ceased his sowing operations altogether. He didn't fray the rope; he cut it clean through at a single decisive stroke. "Queenie," he said to her one night, "this is going to be the last time I'm ever coming down here to see you." "Well, Jerry," she answered, "that'll be all right with me unless you start going to see some other girl in some other house along the row here." "It's not that," he explained. "I'm going to quit going down the line altogether. I'm through"--he made a gesture with his hands--"through with the whole thing from now on." "I see," she said, after a moment or two. "Been getting yourself engaged to some nice girl--is that the way it is, Jerry?" "Yes," he told her, "that's the way it is, Queenie."