whacked this up, shared it, and sometimes loaned all of what was
left of it when one of us needed it for some more gorgeous girl-
adventure, such as car-fare out to Blair's Park and back--twenty
cents, bang, just like that; and ice-cream for two--thirty cents;
or tamales in a tamale-parlour, which came cheaper and which for
two cost only twenty cents.

I did not mind this money meagreness. The disdain I had learned
for money from the oyster pirates had never left me. I didn't
care over-weeningly for it for personal gratification; and in my
philosophy I completed the circle, finding myself as equable with
the lack of a ten-cent piece as I was with the squandering of
scores of dollars in calling all men and hangers-on up to the bar
to drink with me.

But how to get a girl? There was no girl's home to which Louis
could take me and where I might be introduced to girls. I knew
none. And Louis' several girls he wanted for himself; and anyway,
in the very human nature of boys' and girls' ways, he couldn't
turn any of them over to me. He did persuade them to bring girl-
friends for me; but I found them weak sisters, pale and
ineffectual alongside the choice specimens he had.

"You'll have to do like I did," he said finally. "I got these by
getting them. You'll have to get one the same way."

And he initiated me. It must be remembered that Louis and I were
hard situated. We really had to struggle to pay our board and
maintain a decent appearance. We met each other in the evening,
after the day's work, on the street corner, or in a little candy