"In some kind of a store or an office?" 

 "Can't read, can't write." 

 "No?"  Klondyke's eyebrows went up for a fraction of an instant, then they came down as if a bit ashamed of themselves for having gone up at all.  "But it's quite easy to learn, you know." 

 Sailor gasped in astonishment. He had always been led to believe that to learn to read and write was a task of superhuman difficulty. Some of his friends at Blackhampton had attended a night school now and again, but none of them had been able to make much of the racket of reading and writing, except one, Nick Price, who had a gift that way and was good for nothing else. Besides, as soon as he really took to the game a change came over him. Finally, he left the town. 

 "I'd never be able to read an' write," said Sailor. 

 "Why not?" said Klondyke.  "Why not, like anybody else ... if you stuck it? Of course, you'd have to stick it, you know. It mightn't come very kind at first." 

 This idea was so entirely new that Sailor rose with quite a feeling of excitement from the upturned bucket on which he sat. 

 "Honest, mister," he said, gazing wistfully into the face of Klondyke, "do you fink I could?" 

 "Sure," said Klondyke.  "Sure as God made little apples." 

 Sailor decided that he would think it over. It was a very important step to take. 

 

 

 XVIII 

 Klondyke's library consisted of two volumes: the Bible and "Don Quixote."  Sailor knew a bit about the former work. The Reverend Rogers had read it aloud on a famous occasion when Henry Harper had had the luck to be invited to a real blowout of tea and buns at the Brookfield Street Mission. That was a priceless memory, and Henry Harper always thought that to hear the Reverend Rogers read the Bible was a treat. Klondyke, who was not at all like the Reverend Rogers in word or deed, said it was "a damned good book," and would sometimes read in it when he was at a bit of a loose end. 

 It 

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