He was fourteen, and since his mother died the year before, he had supported himself. Since, to do this, he must elude the truant officers, he had become crafty. And since he had twice been caught by them, and had gone without eating for two days before he discovered that he could quite easily run away from school and lose himself in the city, he had also become bitter. But he was neither crafty nor bitter as he walked along, sniffing the spring, and shivering when the bitterer gusts smote his small person. So, with his eyes upon nothing at all, but alert as a young fox’s, he perceived in the gutter a stamped envelope, saw that it was addressed, and picked it up. Without examining it, he thrust it quickly into his pocket, and then, with our ancient instinct for an alibi, he began whistling jauntily, peddling his bills, meanwhile, with an almost ferocious exactness. Two blocks away he halted before an alley and looked quickly up and down: then scurried along it and dodged into a doorway. Jerking the envelope from his pocket he tore it open. A check for seventy-five dollars, drawn to Peter Googan, confronted him. The boy knew perfectly well what he had found. The year before, in school, he had himself written dozens of checks, all the way from twenty-five cents to a million and a half dollars; and this stupendous capital, enough to float the war, with careless abandon he had passed around to his companions, receiving I.O.U.’s in juvenile penmanship and strictly legal phraseology. But this check was different. He stared at it. It meant real money--seventy-five real dollars. The gust died down; the thrill of spring swept over him. He snatched off his hat and threw it into a puddle. Then he leaned up against the brick wall, and across the back of the check he wrote “Peter Googan.” He wrote it quickly and neatly. The need of an accomplice now became immediate and imperative. Another boy came up the alley. He was picking up cigarette stubs, examining them with minute interest, and stuffing part of them into his pocket. “Swiggey, come here.” Swiggey came, with the ready obedience that ten accords to fourteen. “Take this to John’s grocery and get it cashed and bring me the money.” “Where did you get it?” asked Swiggey suspiciously. “He gave it to me: he owes my father money.” “Why don’t you do it yourself, then?” “I got those bills to peddle. Can’t you see for yourself? Ah, gwan, Swiggey. I’ll give you a dollar, if you will.” “Give me half,” said Swiggey. Without a word the young forger doubled up his fist and brought it up swiftly toward Swiggey’s jaw. But Swiggey’s jaw was no longer where it had been. Swiggey ducked under the oncoming fist, gave a couple of leaps, and stood on the opposite side of the alley, poised like Hermes, for immediate flight, if caution dictated.