She forgot that she had told him the night before that he was the luckiest boy in the world to have a chance to do such splendid work as Mr. Thompson had mapped out for him. She asked, anxiously: “Do you have to, Tommy?” “Yes,” he answered, gloomily. “I mean to-day?” She looked at him. It thrilled him so that he instantly reacted to a sense of duty. “Yes,” he said, grimly; “I must. I--” He caught himself. “You what?” “I'll tell you some day.” He spoke almost threateningly. “Why can't you--” she began, irrepressibly. He shook his head so firmly and withal miserably that she looked away and said: “Don't forget to write.” She turned to him and smiled. She knew this boy would remain a boy for years. He divined her suspicion. In fact, he did so quite easily. It made him say: “I don't think you really know me, Marion.” He forgot himself and looked at her challengingly. She took up his challenge. How could she help it? She retorted, “As well as you know me!” “I wonder if that can be so?” he mused. He looked into her eyes intently to see if peradventure the truth was there. “Do you think people can read each other's thoughts?” she asked, a trifle anxiously. “Sometimes I do--almost,” said Tommy, in a low voice. “Tea and English muffins toasted,” said Riverington to the waiter. To Tommy he remarked: “Since I began to associate with wage-earners I find tea helpful. Also sinkers. The days of beer and pretzels--” “There isn't a souse in the shop,” interrupted Tommy, with great dignity. “It was one of the things that Thompson did, and the men never knew it until it was done.” And since he sadly realized that his tête-à-tête with Marion was over, he began to tell them about his job at the shop, to which he was Door Opener. Marion listened for the second time with the same degree and quality of interest with which she would have listened to an African hunting story or a narrative of incredible hardship in the Arctic. And so did Rivington. And then Tommy told them about Bill's invention and hinted at his own hopes. Not being fully satisfied with the hints, he proceeded elaborately to make plain to them what the first successful kerosene carburetor would do for the automobile industry and what it ought to mean to the owners of the patent. And Marion's eyes thereat grew gloriously bright with excitement. “Won't it be fine when your friend finishes it?” she said. “Yes, it will,” said Tommy, looking steadily into her eyes. “No, it would make a philanthropist of Tommy,” said Rivington, shaking his head, “and then his friends would lose him. Leave him as he is--a poor thing, but our own.” Youthful vaudeville, thought Tommy, but not altogether displeasing. And later, when he said good-by to Marion, he was overwhelmed by the infinitude of the things he had wished to tell her and had not. “Be sure to write,” she said.