He talked in a rapid faint voice, like his breathing. Harry Baggs grasped his arm and led him down to their shanty. French Janin entered first, and immediately the other heard a thin complaint from within: “Somebody's got that nice bed you made me.” Harry Baggs went into the hut and, stooping, shook a recumbent shape. “Get out of the old man's place!” he commanded. A string of muffled oaths responded. “There's no reserved rooms here.” “Get out!” Baggs insisted. The shape heaved up obscurely and the boy sent him reeling through the door. French Janin sank with weary relief on the straw and bagging. He grasped the thick young arm above him. “We won't be long in this,” he declared; “diamond studs!” He fell asleep instantly, with his fingers caught in Harry Baggs' sleeve. The latter, with the supreme egotism of youth, of a single ambition, loosened the hand and moved out of the narrow confinement of the shanty. He wanted space, the sky, into which to sing his imaginary triumphant songs. VII The next day moved toward its end without arresting incident. Janin and Harry Baggs had walked to the public road, where they stood leaning against the rail fence. The smoke from Baggs' pipe uprose in unbroken spheres; the evening was definitely hot. French Janin said: “In the town to-day I asked about that house here at the bend. It seems he's got money; comes for a couple of months in the spring--just like us--and then goes to Europe like as not. Perhaps he knows a voice.” The blind man fell silent, contemplative. “Trouble is,” he broke out fretfully, “we've got nothing to sing. That about the 'damn old nigger' won't do. You ought to know something like the Serenade. “Well,” he added after a moment, “why not? I could teach you the words--it's Italian; you've nearly got the air. It's all wrong and backward; but this isn't the Conservatoire. You can forget it when you have started; sing exercises again.” “When can we begin?” Harry Baggs asked. “We'll brush our clothes up best we can,” Janin proceeded, absorbed in his planning, “and go up to the porch of an evening. 'Mr. Brinton'--that's his name--I'll say, 'I'm M. Janin, once of the orchestra at the Opera Comique, and I'd like you to listen to a pupil of mine. I've heard them all and this boy is better----'” He stopped; took morphia. “Can't you stop that for a day?” Harry Baggs demanded desperately. “Can't you?” He watched with bitter rebellion the inevitable slackening of the other's being, the obfuscation of his mind. Janin hung over the fence, with hardly more semblance of life than an incredibly tattered and empty garment. “Come on, you old fool!” Baggs exclaimed, burning with impatience, balked desire; he half carried him brusquely to his bed.