Bruce pictured the woman he loved above the orchids. While he lingered,
his heart warmed, glowing, his wonderful spring day made more wonderful by
a vision not adequately describable, on his ear fell Mickey's admonition:
"Be square!"

He sent one hasty glance toward the gutter. He saw a sullen-faced newsboy
of a size that precluded longer success at paper selling, because public
sympathy goes to the little fellows. Before him stood one of these same
little fellows, lean, tow-haired, and blue-eyed, clean of face, neat in
dress; with a peculiar modulation in his voice that caught Douglas
squarely in the heart. He turned again to the flowers, but as his eyes
revelled in beauty, his ears, despite the shuffle of passing feet, and the
clamour of cars, lost not one word of what was passing in the gutter,
while with each, slow anger surged higher. Mickey, well aware that his
first blow would be all the satisfaction coming to him, put the force of
his being into his punch. At the same instant Douglas thrust forth a hand
that had pulled for Oxford and was yet in condition.

"Aw, you big stiff!" gasped Jimmy, twisting an astonished neck to see what
was happening above and in his rear so surprisingly. Had that little
Mickey O'Halloran gone mad to hit _him?_ Mickey standing back, his face
upturned, was quite as surprised as Jimmy.

"What did he promise you for selling his papers?" demanded a deep voice.

"Twen--ty-_five_," answered Mickey, with all the force of inflection in
his power. "And if you heard us, Mister, you heard him own up he was owing
it."

"I did," answered Douglas Bruce tersely. Then to Jimmy: "Hand him over