Tommy stopped. For the first time it struck full upon him that though he had done all that lay in him to settle matters and settle them right, matters, at any rate the all-important matter, remained much as they were before. Mr. Vanton broke in: “I want to be friends, too. We ought to be, hadn’t we, after this?” A point bothered Mr. Lupton. “You haven’t made me take back what I said about you.” Looking down at the ground Mr. Vanton flushed and said: “Oh, well, you didn’t mean it. It--it’s not important I’m not a foreigner, you know. I was born in San Francisco. I keep dropping into French. You just poke me when I do it. And about--her----” Mr. Vanton broke off, seeming to find the exact words difficult. Then he went on: “You see, it isn’t anything. She likes to hear me talk about France and San Francisco and she’s learning a little French. And--there’s nothing to it, except that I don’t know any one here and she’s company.” A doubt deep in Mr. Lupton found expression. “I s’pose she won’t want anything to do with me after this.” “_I_ won’t tell her,” asserted the other boy. He hesitated, then said: “Tommy, you know she thinks an awful lot of you. And, anyway, she’s got to decide for herself.” To this mature and final view old, young Mr. Lupton assented. “Of _course_! I guess it’s not how we feel about her, but how _she_ feels. Well, I don’t care if I do,” concluded Mr. Lupton, recklessly, taking one of Mr. Vanton’s cigarettes. He lit it, finding the flavour much unlike a pipe of cornsilk. It was not his, however, to pronounce the taste inferior in the face of the world’s judgment. Tommy puffed and felt a strange sense of elevation. “That was a dandy fight you put up,” he conceded. “Say, where did you get all that stuff? Will you show me how?” Mr. Vanton agreed. “I’ve forgotten a lot,” he confessed. “I used to have a Japanese wrestler when I was a kid in San Francisco, and later I had some lessons in Paris.” Mr. Lupton had ceased to listen, however. The curing of Turkish tobacco was suddenly distasteful to him. After a while he apologized: “You pretty well knocked me out,” and managed an admirable smile. They walked back to Blue Port together and Tommy did not even wince at an allusion by the shy-eyed Mr. Vanton to the fact that Mr. Vanton had a longing to become a writer some day. “I scribble a lot now. I even write verse,” explained Mr. Vanton, his innocent brown eyes glancing for a moment into Tommy’s more worldly blue ones. Tommy did not smile or shout. His allegiance to the new friendship was complete and unequivocal; and besides, there was coming into his mind a recognition of certain impalpable things which a girl always fell for and which he, Tommy Lupton, had not to offer. Travel, a foreign language, manners that were polite without being stuck-up, an ability to talk, and a gift of expression; a sort of good looks, too, in spite of the snub nose and the pallor; sophistication extending to