"You give it?"
"Why not? I collected damages from the circus people--that's your share."
Slavin's fingers trembled as he took the proffered banknote. He wriggled restively, looked up, and then looked down.
"Say," he spoke hoarsely at last, "your name is Fairbanks."
"Yes," nodded Ralph.
"A good name, and you're a good sort. I jumped on you wrong the other night, and I want to say it right here. I thought Mort Bemis was my friend. This afternoon he took up with a fellow named Slump, broke open my trunk, stole two of my silver medals, and sloped. That's what I got for being his friend. Now you come and do me a good turn. I'm not your kind, and we can't ever mix probably, but if ever you want anyone hammered, I'll be there. See? I'm--I'm obliged to you, Fairbanks. You've taught me something. There's something better in the world than muscle--and you've got it."
When Ralph left the old shed, he was pretty certain that he had made a new friend. He had, too, won the respect of the little coterie who had seen the terrible "champeen" eat humble pie before a fellow half his size.
Ralph went to a millinery store next. The Saturday evening before he had accompanied his mother on her shopping tour. She had admired a hat in a show-window, but had said she could not spare the money for it just then.
Ralph proudly walked home with the self-same hat in a band-box.
"I have made quite a hole in that fifty dollars," he mused, as he left the band-box at the home cottage, and started for Mrs. Davis' house. "I wonder if I would be as extravagant on a bigger scale, if we should be fortunate enough to get back those twenty thousand dollars' worth of railroad bonds?"