in his eyes. In a voice that trembled despite his proud effort at
control, he said, "Old man, you needn't apologize. You did surprise me,
I'll admit; I wasn't looking for anything like this. It's all right,
though, and I'm certainly not mad about it. But, say, J.W., let me put
something up to you. Why did you never think to ask me that question
before?"

"Why, it was this way," J.W. began, somewhat puzzled at the form of the
question, and still thinking he must set himself right with Marty. "You
know the Epworth League is planning for those special meetings
soon--'Win-My-Chum Week'--and I've been asked to lead one of the
meetings. But you can see that I wouldn't be ready to lead a meeting
like that unless I had put this thing of being a Christian up to you,
anyway. You're the only real chum I've got. Mr. Drury said something a
little while ago that made it mighty plain."

"Yes," said Marty, "I can see that. But why did you never say anything
to me about it when there wasn't any meeting coming? Haven't we always
shared everything else, since away back? This is the one subject that
you and I have kept away from in our talk of all we've ever thought
about, and I was wondering why."

"Well, I don't exactly know," J.W. replied. "It may have been that it
never seemed to be any of my business; that it was the preacher's
business, or the Sunday school teacher's, or somebody's. And you know
I've always been surer of what you really are than I have of myself. I
think I was always afraid you would either make fun of me or believe I
was letting on to be better than you were. But when the League got into
this Win-My-Chum plan, why, the name itself was an eye-opener. And I've
seen lately that a fellow's got to be a Christian, out and out, or his