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 lent a moment. "Be careful," she said, and started downstairs.

"Mom!" He called her back. "Is pop very mad?"

"Yes," she said, and was gone.

"Wait until he sees me getting my twenty-five dollars every week," Bert reflected optimistically, and dropped into slumber.

In the morning, thoroughly alive to the responsibility and importance of his errand, he set out to find an acceptable store. He had an idea that he would ask the bootblack if he were really to quit business, but it was not necessary to ask. A sign, freshly pasted on the window, announced to all and sundry that the place was to let, and carried the invitation to "see F. L. Plecktoff, real estate and insurance."

A girl in the real estate office told Bert that Mr. Plecktoff had gone to the city and would not be back until four o'clock. At the appointed hour he returned to the office.

"Mr. Plecktoff just telephoned," the girl told him. "He has been detained. He won't be here until seven o'clock."

At seven o'clock Bert was back again. This time Mr. Plecktoff was there, a thin little wisp of man, bald and bilious, with a habit of leaning back in his chair and drumming—his fingers on his legs. If he was surprised at a boy asking the rental of a store he did not show it. . . many strange