"R," I said to myself.

Then he opened the damper three times, each about twenty seconds, and I
could hear the fellows up on the roof shouting.

"O! It's a good O! Bully for Wig Weigand!"

"Give me another towel, quick," he said to Artie. "Is the window open?
you better go up, Kid."

It was the first time he ever called me kid and he had to cough when he
said it. But I just couldn't move. There was something in my throat and
my eyes that wasn't smoke, and I said, "I can stand it if you can--Wig."

"Go on up, kid," he said, "we've--got--got--her--talking--now," and he
coughed and choked.

"Go on up, Roy," Artie Van Arlen said.

Up on the roof all the fellows were sitting 'round the edge with their
legs over, watching the black column in the sky, and shouting when they
read the letters. But I was thinking about those fellows down in that
cabin filled with smoke and how they were doing that all on account of me.

"Pretty smoky down there," one of the Elks said to me.

"You said something," I told him.

"He's marking up the sky all right, if he can only stick it out,"
another fellow said. "Who's down there with him ?"