which overflowed a grey blanket. Three chairs, one a decrepit armchair from whose leather covering the horsehair stuffing protruded in many places, stood about. There was also a bureau and a washstand. On the end of the former stood a small gas-stove and various pans and cooking utensils. Books, mostly sober-sided, dry-looking volumes, lay everywhere, on table, bureau, window-seat, chair and even on the floor. Between the several articles of furniture lay broad and arid expanses of unpainted flooring.
At first glance the room appeared to be inhabited only by a tall, thin but prepossessing youth of perhaps twenty years and a Scottish terrier whose age was a matter for conjecture since her countenance was fairly well hidden by sandy hair. The youth was seated at the deal table and the terrier was halfway between box and door, growling inquiringly at the intruder. At Myron’s entry Merriman tilted back in his chair, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and said “Good morning” in a deep, pleasant voice. Then he added mildly: “Shut up, Tess, or I’ll murder you.” The terrier gave a last growl and retired to the box. As she settled down in it a series of astonishing squeaks emerged. Myron looked across startledly and Merriman laughed.
“Puppies,” he explained. “Six of them. That’s why she’s so ferocious. Seems to think every one who comes upstairs is a kidnapper. I tell her the silly things are too ugly to tempt any one, but she doesn’t believe me.”
“Will she let me see them?” asked Myron eagerly.
“Oh, yes.” Merriman drew his long length from the chair and led the way to the box. “Now then, old lady, pile out of here and let the gentleman have a look at your ugly ducklings.”
The terrier made no objection to being removed, but the puppies cried dismally at the parting. Myron chuckled. “Funny things!” he exclaimed. “Why, they haven’t got their eyes open yet!”
“No, they’re only six days old. How’s this one for a butter-ball? Isn’t he a fat rascal? All right, Tess, we won’t hurt them. I vouch for the gentleman. He never stole a puppy in all his innocent young life.”
“I never did,” Myron corroborated, “but I’d like to start right now!”
“Like dogs, eh?” asked the host.
“Yes, indeed. Funny thing is, though, that I’ve never owned one.”
“No? How does that happen?”
“I don’t know. My mother thinks they’re rather a nuisance around the house. Still, I dare say she’d have let me kept one if I’d insisted. I don’t suppose you – you’d care to sell one of those?”
“Oh, yes, I would. I’ll have to either sell them or give them: unless I send them off to the happy hunting ground.”
“Really? How much would they be?”
“The lot?” asked Merriman, a twinkle in his eye.
“Gee, no! One!”
“Five dollars. Tess is good stock, and the father is a thoroughbred belonging to Terrill, the stableman on Centre Street. Got a place to keep him?”
“I’d forgot about that,” owned Myron. “I’m afraid not. They wouldn’t let me have him in Sohmer, would they?”
“Scarcely!” laughed the other. “All right, old lady, back you go. Sit down – ah – What’s the name, please?”
“Foster. Mr. Morgan gave me your address. I want some tutoring in Latin, and he said he thought you could take me on.”
“Possibly. Just dump those books on the seat there. What hours do you have free, Foster?”
“This hour in the morning and any time in the evening.”
“What about afternoon?”
“I’m trying for the football team and that doesn’t leave me much time afternoons. Still, I guess we’re usually through by five.”
Merriman shook his head. “I’d rather not waste my time and yours, Foster. Football practice doesn’t leave a fellow in very good trim for tutoring. Better say the evening, I guess. How would seven to nine do?”
“Two hours?” asked Myron startledly.
“Yes, you can’t accomplish much in less. I can’t, anyhow.”
“Very well. Seven to nine. Shall I come here or – ”
“I’ll come to you. What’s the number in Sohmer? Seventeen? All right. We’ll begin tomorrow. My terms are a dollar an hour. You pay for the time it takes me to get to you, usually about ten minutes. Can you arrange with your room-mate to let us have the place to ourselves at that time?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Myron confidently.
“Good. Now pull your chair over here, please, and we’ll see what the job is.”
Merriman had a lean face from which two dark brown eyes looked keenly forth. His mouth was broad and his nose straight and long. A high forehead, a deep upper lip and a firmly pointed chin added to the general effect of length. You couldn’t have called him handsome, by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something attractive in his homeliness. Perhaps it was the expression of the eyes or perhaps the smile that hovered continuously about the wide mouth. He dressed, Myron reflected, as wretchedly as Joe Dobbins: more wretchedly, in fact, for Joe’s clothes were at least new and good of their kind, whereas Merriman’s things were old, frayed, ill-fitting. His trousers, which bagged so at the knees that they made Merriman look crooked, had been a positive shock to the visitor. But in spite of attire and surroundings, Myron liked this new acquaintance. Above all, he liked his voice. It was deep without being gruff and had a kind of – of pleasant kindliness in it, he thought. After all, it was no fault to be poor if you couldn’t help it, he supposed; and he had known fellows back home – not intimately, of course, but well enough to talk to – who, while poor, were really splendid chaps.
Presently Merriman finished his questions and finished jotting down little lines and twirls and pot-hooks on a scrap of paper. Myron rather wished he knew shorthand too. It looked ridiculously easy the way Merriman did it. “All right, thanks,” said the latter as he laid his pencil down. “I think I know what we’ve got ahead of us. Frankly, I don’t see how they let you into the third with so little Latin, Foster. But we’ll correct that. How are you at learning, by the way? Does it come easy or do you have to grind hard?”
“Why, I think I learn things fairly easily,” replied Myron doubtfully. “Of course, Latin looks hard to me because I’ve never had much of it, but I think – I hope you won’t find me too stupid.” Afterwards, recalling the visit, it struck him as odd that he should have said that. Usually he didn’t trouble greatly about whether folks found him one way or another. He was Myron Foster, take him or leave him!
“I shan’t,” answered Merriman. “I’ve had all sorts and I always manage to get results.”
“Do you do much tutoring?” Myron asked.
“A good deal. Not so much now as later. Spring’s my busy time.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d have time for your own studies.”
“I’m not taking much this year. Only four courses. I could have finished last spring, but I wasn’t quite ready for college then. By the way, if you hear of any one wanting a nice puppy I wish you’d send them
