IN the morning, he was very stiff. When he discovered this, he made up his mind that he was ill enough to stay in bed, which (it being Saturday) would let him out of having to do the scrubbing. But when, on second thought, he consulted Cis, he changed his mind, instantly scrambled up, put the scrubbing water on to heat, and started breakfast. For he dared not allow Big Tom to know the truth about his condition. And the truth was, he gathered, that his stiffness was due to those exercises—also to the baleful effects of the bath!

"Maybe I lost too much skin," he suggested. "Y' think I'm any worse off for it, with all that skin gone?"

"Oh, you keep it up!" returned Cis. "You won't be stiff as soon as you've moved around a little. And, oh, Johnnie, don't ever, ever, ever wait so long before you bathe again! I'm just sick about what happened yesterday! I dreamed about it!—though, of course"—catching at a straw of comfort—"it would've been a lot worse if He had been here instead of the scout man."

Deep-breathing and exercises regularly punctuated, or, rather, regularly interrupted, the morning program of work. And bath water took the place of the scrubbing water in the tub directly the floor was mopped up. Then Johnnie could not deny himself the pleasure of showing himself to Mrs. Kukor while he still bore evidences of his unwonted, and unspotted, state. Blowing and excited, and looking yellower than usual, he displayed his freshly washed neck, a fringe of wet hair, and a pair of soapy ears. "And ain't I shiney as a plate?" he demanded. "It's my second in two days!"

She turned him round and round, marveling. "Pos-i-tivvle!" she declared.

For a very long time Johnnie had been making a point of skimping the Saturday noon meal, this because Barber came home to eat it. Furthermore, as hot biscuits and gravy made a combination dish of which the longshoreman was particularly fond, Johnnie had seen to it that hot biscuits and gravy did not appear on the table except rarely. But this Saturday his inner man was demanding more food than usual. His appetite was coming up, exactly as Mr. Perkins had said it would! So Johnnie set about preparing a good dinner.

He used a cup of Grandpa's milk for biscuit-dough. And when the biscuits—two dozen of them—were browning nicely in the oven, he concocted a generous supply of bacon-grease gravy, and set it to boiling creamily. There were boiled potatoes, too, and two quarts of strong tea. Not only because he was hungry, but also because he dreaded to let Big Tom know just how hungry he was, Johnnie ate half of his dinner before the others returned. At the regular meal, he ate his ordinary amount.

"Gee! Water and air'll fix me all right!" he boasted to Cis. "Who'd ever b'lieve it!" He was too happy even to fret about One-Eye.

"Haven't I advised you lots of times to wash yourself all over?" she reminded him. "My! I'd bathe if all I had to bathe in was a teacup! And now I've a mind to start in on the exercises!" She was too pleased over the change in him to bring up just then the matter of that first bath.

There was no mistake about Johnnie's improving. Mr. Perkins noted it the moment he stepped through the door one morning early in the next week. He had brought with him a quart-bottle of delicious, fresh milk, and Johnnie drank it, slowly, cup by cup, as they talked. What had helped most, Mr. Perkins declared, was the open window at night, the fresh air. And Johnnie must have even more fresh air.

"But how're we going to manage it?" Mr. Perkins wanted to know. "Because you can't very well go out for long walks and leave Grandpa alone"—which showed that Mr. Perkins felt as One-Eye did about it. "If there was a fire, say, what could the poor, old, helpless man do?"

"I never thought of that!" admitted Johnnie. "But"—with clear logic—"when Big Tom's home, and Grandpa's safe's anything, why, even then I ain't ever 'lowed to go for a walk. Big Tom and Mustapha, they're both against me and Aladdin playin' in the street."

"What about the roof?" asked Mr. Perkins.

Strangely enough, Johnnie had never thought of that, either. "But Aunt Sophie wouldn't 'low me to go up on her roof," he remembered. "And I don't b'lieve the jan'*-tress would on this one."

He was right. Though Mr. Perkins called personally upon that lady, and laid before her the question of Johnnie's health, she was adamantine in her refusal. Even the sight of a two-dollar bill could not sway her, offered, as Mr. Perkins explained, not in the hope of bribing her to do anything that was forbidden, but as pay in case Johnnie proved to be any trouble; for she had explained, "Kids is fierce for t'rowin' trash 'round, and I can't swip the roof only once a year."

Mr. Perkins was keenly disappointed. But he tried to make light of their set-back, and distracted Johnnie's thoughts from the roof by producing two wonderful presents. One was an unframed picture of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, looking splendid and soldierlike in a uniform and a broad hat turned up at one side, and a sword that hung from his belt. The second gift was a toothbrush.

Johnnie pinned the picture above Cis's dressing-table box in the tiny room. The toothbrush (it had a handle of pure ivory!), he slipped inside his shirt. Mr. Perkins suggested delicately that, when it came to the care of the teeth, there was no time like the present. But Johnnie begged for delay. "I want Cis t' see it while it's so nice and new," he argued, "—before it's all wet and spoiled."

Cis was fairly enraptured when he showed her the brush. "Oh, I've been wanting to own a good one for years!" she cried; "and not just the ten-cent-store kind! Oh, Johnnie—!" She tipped her sleek head to one side entreatingly.

Johnnie had foreseen all this. He bargained with her. "I'll swop y' the brush," he declared.

"Swop for what?—Oh, Johnnie! Oh, isn't it sweet!"

Grandpa was in the room. Johnnie raised on his toes to whisper: "For you not t' tell Mister Perkins n'r anybody else when I sneak up on the roofs of nights."

"You wouldn't lean over the edge, Johnnie, and go all dizzy, and fall?"—the brush was a sore temptation.

Johnnie belittled her fears. "Couldn't I jus' as easy fall out of our window?" he demanded.

The bargain was struck; the brush changed hands.

In the face of those two gifts, Cis could never again doubt the existence of a real Mr. Perkins. "I didn't care awfully whether he was a truly person or not," she confided to Johnnie now. "But as long as he is alive, I think I'd like to meet him. So the next time he comes, you get him to come the time after that between twelve and one, and I'll run home. I can eat my lunch while I'm walking."

Johnnie considered the suggestion. "You won't give 'way on me 'bout the swop, though."

"Cross my heart!"

After she had used the brush (thoroughly, too), and could not, therefore, retreat out of her bargain, he offered an argument which he felt sure would clinch her silence. "You wouldn't want Mister Perkins t' find out that y' didn't have a good brush of your own," he reminded her, "and that y' took mine away."

"Oh, I wouldn't!"—fervently. Then, recalling how she had already been mortified in the matter of his first bath, and returning, girl-like, to that worn-out subject, "Johnnie, are you positive Mr. Perkins didn't see you empty the tub that day? and did he see the bottom of it when the water was all out? and in the bottom wasn't there a lot of grit?"

He reassured her. "But, my goodness, Cis, you're terrible stuck-up," he declared.

Certainly she felt more comfortable. For at once, with a haughty and precise air, which was her idea of how the socially elect bear themselves, with a set smile on her quaint face, and modulating her voice affectedly, she took Mr. Perkins's arm and went for a walk around Seward Park (the table), discussing the weather as she strolled, the scenery, and other impersonal subjects. And there was much bowing and hand shaking to it all, while Johnnie stood by, scarcely knowing whether to be pleased or cross.

"When you come home, and Mister Perkins is here, what'll I say?" he asked; "—just at first?"

"You introduce us," instructed Cis. "You tell him what my name is, and you tell me what his name is."

"But you know his name!" argued Johnnie. "And he knows yours."

"I can't help it," she returned. "It sounds silly, but everybody does it that way, and so you must, or he'll think you're funny."

"Well, all right." It was important that Mr. Perkins should not think him funny, lest that invitation to become a scout be withdrawn.

That night, so soon as Big Tom was asleep, Johnnie made his first trip to the roof; and understood, the moment he emerged from the little house which was built over the top of the stairs, why Mr. Perkins had recommended it as being more desirable than the street. Of course it was! The confinement of the past week or more helped to emphasize its good points. Ah, this was a place to breathe! to exercise! Above all, what a place from which to see! With the night wind in his hair, and swelling the big shirt, Johnnie stood, high and lonely, like Crusoe on his island, looking up and around, enchanted.

How much sky there was!—joined to his own square. The clouds, enormous and beautiful, had plenty of space in which to drift about, by turns hiding and uncovering the stars. Lifted almost into those clouds were the spars of ships, the tallest of the city's buildings, the black lace-work of two bridges. Oh, how big, how strange—yes, and even how far removed—seemed this New York of the night!

When he could say good-by to the flat for the last time, could leave it behind him forever, oh, how many sights there would be for him to see in this great city! "I'll just go and go!" he promised himself. "In ev'ry direction! And look and look and look!" Going had brought him One-Eye's friendship, and Mr. Perkins's. Somewhere in all those miles of roofs were other friends, just waiting to be found.

The cold in the night wind cut short his reflections. He fell to exercising, and drinking in big draughts of the sea air; then hastened down on soft foot to his bed. Cis was waiting in her door to see him come, and he knew she had been anxious, and thoroughly resented it.

"I didn't hurt the old roof," he whispered. But he felt very happy, in spite of his irritation, and genuinely sorry for any boy who did not have a roof.

Every morning now he enjoyed his splash in the tub; every night he glorified in his taste of the real outdoors. On the following Sunday, he combined the two pleasures. Big Tom was in and out all day, making it impossible for Johnnie to bathe even in the seclusion of Cis's tiny room, which she generously offered to loan him for the ceremony. He did not accept her offer. He was as sure as ever that Barber would not only put a stop to all baths if he discovered they were being taken (on the ground that they used up too much soap), but the longshoreman might go further, and administer punishment which would be particularly trying—with Johnnie in a clothesless condition.

He waited for nightfall. The day was unseasonably warm. By sundown the patch of sky framed by the window was solidly overlaid with clouds, among which the thunder was rolling. A shower was brewing, and Johnnie had an idea. He took the soap and a wash rag to bed with him.

The others were asleep when the storm broke. But Johnnie was just inside the little house on the roof, shedding his clothes under cover. As the rain came lashing upon the warm, painted tin, he rushed forth into it, letting it whip his bare skin as he soaped and rubbed.

It was glorious! And though he dared not shout, he leaped hither and thither in an excess of joy, and did his calisthenics, the lightning flashing him into his own sight. And he took in from the rain, through tossing arms and legs, the electricity that he lacked—cut off as he had been so long from even the touch of a pavement.

Next, naked though he was, he played scout; and as he romped other scouts came to romp with him, dropping over the edge of the roof in all directions, or popping out from behind the chimney and the little house. And all were as naked as he, and as full of joy, and they danced in a circle with him, and marched, and went through the exercises.

When at last his yellow hair was streaming, and his breath was spent, he dried himself, standing on the stairs, and using the long tails of the big shirt; then, trousered once more, he crept down and in, to sleep an unbroken, dreamless sleep, wrapped from head to toe in just nothing but his quilt. Only his small unfreckled nose showed, drawing in the rain-washed breeze that came swirling upon his bed through the open window.

"It's my beach!" he told Cis proudly the next morning. "I waded—honest, I did! And I pretty near swimmed!"

He felt stronger, and consequently did not hate his housework so much. As for his appearance, Mr. Perkins was more than ever struck with its improvement when he saw Johnnie again; also, the leader was a trifle puzzled. But other things than breathing and bathing and exercises were helping Johnnie. He had something to look forward to now—a goal. Indeed, the greater part of his betterment was the result of that fresh interest Mr. Perkins had given him, his pride, and his hope.

"But I'd like t' learn more things 'bout scouts," he told the leader. "Is all I have t' do jus' git strong and grow t' be twelve?"

"Steady, old man!" counseled Mr. Perkins.

He failed to see, he said, that Johnnie's teeth looked any whiter. He acted almost as if he doubted Johnnie's use of the brush. Luckily Johnnie remembered that meeting which Cis had proposed, and this served to change the subject. By advice from Cis, later on, he was insured against Mr. Perkins's being so disappointed again. Cis gave him some powder; and he got fair results from her old brush.

So far as he was concerned, the meeting between Cis and Mr. Perkins proved utterly profitless. To begin with, in his pride and excitement, he forgot to follow out her instructions regarding the introduction. Instead of pronouncing the two names politely, he ran to Cis, and "Here he is!" he cried. "This is him! Mister Perkins!"

She stood against the hall door, smiling shyly. Mr. Perkins rose, looking more red than brown, and gave her a soldierly bow, though that day he was not wearing a uniform, but a gray business suit.

"I'm so glad to meet you," he said. "Johnnie's told me so much about you."

"I—I've got to go right back," was what she said. "Two of the girls 're waiting for me downstairs."

"Aw, Cis!" pleaded Johnnie. "Wait! Ain't y' goin' t' exercise with us?"

She went. And though she darted a smile at their visitor, to Johnnie she seemed all indifference, and he was staggered by it; only to be more than gratified by her complete change of attitude when she got home at suppertime. "Oh, he's handsome!" she declared. "My! The girls wouldn't believe how noble and splendid he is! He just can't be as young as you say, Johnnie, because he's been a soldier in the big war! I know it by that little button-thing in his coat! Oh, Johnnie, he's nicer than you said! Thousands and thousands of times!"

Johnnie swaggered a bit over that. "All my friends is nice," he observed. "Only I wish I could have One-Eye and Mr. Perkins here both at the same time!"

He had to give a minute account of Mr. Perkins's visit, and not once, but as often as he could manage to go over the subject before Big Tom came in. After supper, as they hung in the window together, looking up at the night sky, he had to review all previous visits, as well as that memorable, history-making meeting under the Elevated.

"He's like a young gentleman in a story!" she whispered. "And he's awful stylish! Did you notice?—his handkerchief to-day had a teeny brown edge to it!"

In the morning, she did an unprecedented thing: rose earlier than usual and helped Johnnie set the flat to rights. The dish cupboard came in for the most of her attention, a fact which brought loud protests from him, for she used up the whole of Mr. Maloney's precious newspapers, this in making fancifully cut covers for the shelves.

"Oh, let's look civilized!" she cried.

She came home at noon, her girl friends accompanying her, but waiting, as before, in the area. She was not so shy as she had been the first day; instead, she was dignified as she viewed the arm- and leg-work, praised Johnnie with sweet condescension, and thanked Mr. Perkins for all his trouble with quite a grown-up air.

The noon following, she arrived alone (Mr. Perkins had remarked the day previous that he would be coming regularly now). As he had appeared early, and the exercising was over and done, he and Cis went down the stairs together. Johnnie stood outside the door to watch them, and marveled as he watched. When had he ever seen Cis smile so much? chatter so freely? Now she did not seem afraid of Mr. Perkins at all!

In the hall overhead some one else was watching—Mrs. Kukor. As he looked up, she nodded at him. "Ah-ha-a-a-a!" she whispered, and laid one finger along her nose mysteriously. Johnnie understood that she was thinking of Big Tom. He nodded back, and put a finger to his lips.

All that afternoon he was so proud, just thinking of Cis threading the crowds with Mr. Perkins at her side. Yet she herself was evidently not impressed by the great compliment the leader had paid her. For the next day she did not invite a similar experience by coming home at noon; nor the next. In fact, she never again dropped in to see the drill. She had lost interest in it, she told Johnnie—which was natural enough, seeing that she was a girl.

But! She seemed also to have completely lost all interest in Mr. Perkins!