Mike took heart, his experience believed and his bafflement shared. He spoke cheerfully. "It doesn't make sense, but old Wicker's so old he may be addled, don't you reckon? Who else would keep an antique store where nobody ever looks? All the other antique places are along Wisconsin Avenue where people go to shop." "You reckon Jakey really could use the job?" Chris asked, his courage ebbing as he pictured to himself the dark little shop with its bow window of small panes, and Mr. Wicker, so thin and wizened he seemed only bones and wrinkles. "Think he really needs it?" he pursued. But Mike was certain, or perhaps he needed a companion in this curious experiment. "You bet he does! He tol' me at noon today he wished he could find something that would help bring some money in. His mother's sick," he repeated, "an' Jakey don' look so good himself." "Well--" Chris said, half agreeing. "I'll go with ya!" Mike announced, as if that finished the argument; which, as a matter of fact, it did. Chris did not feel too happy about his mission and hung back a moment longer, looking in the Pep Boys' window at things he had already seen. He would have liked to get the job for Jakey, who needed it, but somehow the task of facing Mr. Wicker, especially now that the light was going and dusk edging into the streets, was not what Chris had intended for ending the afternoon. Although he had not been quite certain how he had meant to spend the rest of the remaining daylight, Mike's plan did not seem to fit his present mood. "Are you coming?" Mike challenged, with a hint of derision. "Yes," said Chris suddenly, "I'm coming. I'll ask for Jakey." Mike's expression changed at once to one of triumph, but Chris was only partly encouraged. The two boys walked to the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Traffic roared up the first short block of Wisconsin from under the high steel freeway down to their left. Chris glanced down the slope of Wisconsin. Houses and shops thinned suddenly on both sides of the street. Far down at the very end, on his side, he could see the brick walls and slate roof of Mr. Wicker's house. Chris knew it well, for times without number he had pressed his nose to the square Georgian panes of Mr. Wicker's window to gaze at the strangely fascinating jumble of oddments that were displayed. Now, however, he felt in no mood to visit the curiosity shop and stood shifting his feet and looking aimlessly about. Mike, beside him, was becoming restive, and gave him a poke. "Betcha aren't goin' after all!" Chris turned on him. "Am too!" Mike looked disdainful. "Aw--you're stalling!" "Not any sucha thing. I'm going now." "O.K. Let's see you." Chris turned his back on Mike and started down the hill. After a step or two, not finding his friend beside him, he turned. Mike was standing on the corner. "Hi!" Chris called, indignant. "You said you were coming with me!"