"Cedric, come here!" The little boy went, bawling lustily to win sympathy. The nursemaid shook him impatiently. "How many times have I told you to look where you're going? Serves you just right. Now be still." There was a deep instinct in Clay to stand by those in trouble when they were weak. A child or a woman in distress always had a claim on him. "I reckon the li'l' fellow was in a hurry, Miss," he said, smiling. "I 'most always was at his age. But he ain't hurt much." The maid looked Clay up and down scornfully before she turned her back on him and began to talk with another nurse. Beneath the tan of the range-rider's cheeks the color flamed. This young woman had not mistaken the friendliness of the West for the impudence of a street masher. The impulse of snobbery had expressed itself in her action. The cowpuncher followed a path that took him back to the street. He grinned, but there was no smile in his heart. He was ashamed of this young woman who could meet good-will with scorn, and he wanted to get away from her without any unnecessary delay. What were the folks like in this part of the country that you couldn't speak to them without getting insulted? He struck across the Drive into a side street. An apartment house occupied the corner, but from the other side a row of handsome private dwellings faced him. The janitor of the apartment house was watering the parking beyond the sidewalk. The edge of the stream from the nozzle of the hose sprayed the path in front of Clay. He hesitated for a moment to give the man time to turn aside the hose. But the janitor on this particular morning had been fed up with trouble. One of the tenants had complained of him to the agent of the place. Another had moved away without tipping him for an hour's help in packing he had given her. He was sulkily of the opinion that the whole world was in a conspiracy to annoy him. Just now the approaching rube typified the world. A little flirt of the hose deluged Clay's newly shined boots and the lower six inches of his trousers. "Look out what you're doing!" protested the man from Arizona. "I tank you better look where you're going," retorted the one from Sweden. He was a heavy-set, muscular man with a sullen, obstinate face. "My shoes and trousers are sopping wet." "Yust you bate it oop street. I ant look for no trouble with no rubes." "I believe you did it on purpose." "Tank so? Val, yust one teng I lak to tell you. I got no time for damn fule talk." The Westerner started on his way. There was no use having a row with a sulky janitor. But the Swede misunderstood his purpose. At Clay's first step forward he jerked round the nozzle and let the range-rider have it with full force.