MAX SCHIMMEL
25
ing into decay, was almost in the heart of the business district on property left unimproved by Hereford for business reasons. Besides the second floor, Max had the use of half the yard.
He was in this yard, which with carefully nurtured shrubs and vines he had converted into a garden, when Hereford found him. Beside him a stump-tailed Gila lizard in a little glass cage basked comfortably in the warm October sun, and at his feet a strange crimson-striped fish, which Hereford had not seen before, with long, featherlike fins streaked purple and crimson, flopped in a glass trough; but Max's attention was entirely absorbed by a tiny clay pot boasting one white sweet pea. He was measuring this sweet pea across and across with a fine wire
