straight home and I'll come out and put it in a plaster cast.' You see"—she illustrated by putting the tips of her two forefingers together—"it was really broken, cracked through, but it hadn't slipped by. Well, the doctor had to stay and finish his office hours, and about an hour later he looked up and there was Jimsy, and he said, 'Say, Doc, would you just as soon set this leg to-morrow? You see, I've got a date to take Skipper—he always calls me Skipper—to a dance to-night. I won't dance, but I'll just——' and the doctor just roared at him and told him to go home that instant, and Jimsy went out, but when the doctor got to his house he wasn't there, and he had to wait about half an hour for him, and he was[Pg 40] furious—he's got a terrible temper but he's the dearest old thing, really. Pretty soon Jimsy came wandering in with his arms full of books and games and puzzles and things he'd got to amuse himself while he was laid up! Of course the doctor expected him to keep perfectly still in bed, but he found he could make a sort of a raft of two table extension boards and slide downstairs to his meals. He had an awful time getting up again, but he didn't care. The first day he was laid up he had exactly nineteen people to see him, and he took the bandages off the leg and all the boys and teachers wrote their autographs and sentiments on the cast. He called it his Social Register and his Guest Book!" Honor was too happily deep in her reminiscences to see that her new friend was a little bored. [Pg 39] [Pg 40] He got suddenly to his feet. "Yes. He must be an unusual fellow. But I'd like to hear you sing. Won't you come into the house and sing something for me?" "All right," said Honor. "I love to sing, but I haven't studied very much yet, and I haven't any decent songs. Why doesn't somebody write some?—Songs about something? Not just maudling along about 'heart' and 'part' and that kind of stuff! Come on! There's Stepper at the piano now. He'll play for me." [Pg 41] [Pg 41] It was mellow in the long living-room after the brazen afternoon sun outside, a livable, lovable room. Stephen Lorimer had an open book on the music rack and he was thumping some rather stirring chords. "Stepper," said Honor, "here's Carter Van Meter, and he wants me to sing for him, and I was just saying how I hated all these mushy old songs. Can't you find me something different?"
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