"No; but generally I've intelligence enough to know whether a
pulse is slow or fast, full or weak."

"But-----"

"Keep quiet," Tom commanded, as he drew out his watch. His face
expressed nothing in particular as he kept the tip of his forefinger
against the radial artery at the boy's wrist.

"Fine," commented the young engineer, a few moments later, as
he let go the captive wrist.

"Good pulse, eh?" questioned Alf Drew.

"Great!" quoth Tom. "Fine and wiry, and almost skips some beats.
I'm not much of an authority on such subjects, but I believe
a boy of your age ought to have a normal pulse. Where do you
expect to wind up with your 'makings' and your cigarettes?"

"They don't hurt me," whined Alf.

"They don't, eh?" demanded Reade, rising and drawing himself up
to his full height of five-feet-eleven. "Drew, do you think you
look as healthy as I do?"

As he stood there, erect as a soldier, with his fine athletic
figure revealed, and the bronze on his face seemingly inches deep,
Tom Reade looked what he was---every inch a man though still a
boy in years.