"Drink that tea, Boss Still Jim, and eat them toasted crackers. You didn't eat any supper to speak of and you're as pindlin' as a knitting needle. Don't slop on your clean suit. That khaki is hard to iron." She stood close beside him and made an imaginary thread an excuse for laying her hand caressingly on Jim's shoulder. "You're a fine lad," she said, uncertainly. "I wish I'd been your mother." The touch was too much for Jim. He dropped the teacup and, turning, laid his face against Mrs. Flynn's shoulder. "I could pretend you were tonight, very easily," he said brokenly, "if you'd smooth my hair for me." Mrs. Flynn hugged the broad shoulders to her and smoothed back Jim's hair. "I've been wanting to get my hands on it ever since I first saw it, lad. God knows it's as soft as silk and just the color of oak leaves in winter. There, now, hold tight a bit, my boy. We can weather any storm if we have a friend to lean on, and I'm that, God knows. It's a fearful cold I've caught, God knows. You'll have to excuse my snuffing. There now! There! God knows that in my waist I've got a letter for you from Mrs. Penelope. She seemed used up tonight. Her jewel of a husband took dope tonight, so she and I sat in peace while she wrote this. I'll leave it on your tray. Good-night to you, Boss. Don't slop on your suit." CHAPTER XVIII JIM MAKES A SPEECH "I am permanent so I cannot fully understand the tragedy that haunts humans from their birth, the tragedy of their own transitoriness." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. Jim drank his tea, staring the while at the envelope that lay on the tray. Then he opened the envelope and read: "DEAR STILL: Don't say that I must go away. I want to stay and help you. I promised Iron Skull that I would. I don't want to add one breath to your pain--nor to my own!--and yet I feel as if we ought to forget ourselves and think only of the dam. No one knows you as I do, dear Jim. Iron Skull felt, and so do I, that somehow, sometime I can help you to be the big man you were meant to be. I have grown to feel that it was for that purpose I have lived through the last eight years. If it will not hurt you too much, please, Jim, let me stay. PENELOPE." Jim answered the note immediately. "DEAREST PEN: Give me a day or so to get braced and we will go on as before. Stand by me, Pen. I need you, dear. JIM."