She stopped abruptly, and her hand went up to her mouth with a gesture of dismay. “Oh! Great Scott!” she ejaculated; “that reminds me, I was going on to another frightfully important meeting when those hooligans started chasing me; and that and our talk put it right out of my head.” “At what time was this important meeting to be held?” Henry Wolverton asked, looking at his watch. “One o’clock,” she told him. “You still have ten minutes,” he said. Susan shuddered. “I daren’t go out again alone,” she confessed. “I simply daren’t. I’d--I’d sooner stay here all night with you.” “I shall be delighted to come with you,” Henry Wolverton said. “You!” Susan exclaimed. “But don’t you understand the risk? The mob’s loose. What good would you be against three or four chunky hooligans?” Henry Wolverton squared his shoulders. He was a tall, finely-built man, and his face had the cool assurance of one who has never known fear. “I am not afraid of hooligans,” he said. Susan gazed at him with frank admiration. “You know you’re a perfect topper in some ways,” she complimented him. He bowed gravely. “If I might be admitted to this meeting of yours,” he said; “it would perhaps afford me an opportunity to begin my education.” “If you’re sure you’re not afraid,” Susan replied, picking up her hat. “I’m not in the least afraid,” he said. “Will you take my arm?” At the open door they paused a moment, looking out into the darkness; listening to the profound silence of the empty night--creative youth and patient scholarship, hand-in-hand, facing the immense void of the unforetellable future. A NEGLIGIBLE EXPERIMENT “I can’t get him right, somehow,” the young sculptor said, but he looked tenderly at the little figure of the man he was modelling in plasticine, as if, despite its very obvious defects, he found something to admire in his creation. “Wants stiffening, doesn’t he?” I suggested. “Couldn’t you put a wire or something up his legs and back?” “Well, you see,” my young friend explained, “I could if I knew beforehand exactly what I was going to do with him. Only I don’t. I like to make him up as I go along. I’m no good at it really. I can’t think it all out ahead and then sit down and do it right off. I have to experiment and--see how it comes, you know. Do you think his head is too big?” I thought it was rather big. The young modeller regarded his creation with a look in which fondness still seemed to preponderate. “Perhaps if....” he said; then speech died out of him as his hands again began to fashion and improve his little image of humanity. And as I watched him a vision came to me. I lost consciousness of the boy and his workshop. I wandered away into a dreamland of the imagination, following the lure of a fantasy deeper and more satisfying than the reality of life. * * * * *