pillar. “Well, how is that for a bum guess? Why, blast my skylights! I know what he was driving at now.
“Hippopotamus! Wouldn’t that send you to the Bronx! It’s been a year since he heard it; and he didn’t miss it so very far. We quit at 469 B. C., and this comes next. Well, a wooden man wouldn’t have guessed what he was trying to get out of him.”
Danny caught a crosstown car and went up to the rear flat that his labor supported.
Old man McCree was still sitting by the window. His extinct pipe lay on the sill.
“Will that be you, lad?” he asked.
Danny flared into the rage of a strong man who is surprised at the outset of committing a good deed.
“Who pays the rent and buys the food that is eaten in this house?” he snapped, viciously. “Have I no right to come in?”
“Ye’re a faithful lad,” said old man McCree, with a sigh. “Is it evening yet?”
Danny reached up on a shelf and took down a thick book labeled in gilt letters, “The History of Greece.” Dust was on it half an inch thick. He laid it on the table and found a place in it marked by a strip of paper. And then he gave a short roar at the top of his voice, and said:
“Was it the hippopotamus you wanted to be read to about then?”
