as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most
interesting person.

"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real
story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human."

The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a
sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down.

"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And I'm
going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger
vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game.
I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the
University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep
pegging away."

"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have
had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the
current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had
everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us
already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you
might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully.

"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any
good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all."

It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would
he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep
her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland.