"It's about a little Cockney draper's assistant, who takes a
vacation on his bicycle, and falls in with a young girl very much
above him. Her mother is a popular writer and all that. And the
situation is very curious, and sad, too, and tragic. Would you
care to read it?"

"Does he get her?" Daylight demanded.

"No; that's the point of it. He wasn't--"

"And he doesn't get her, and you've read all them pages, hundreds
of them, to find that out?" Daylight muttered in amazement.

Miss Mason was nettled as well as amused.

"But you read the mining and financial news by the hour," she
retorted.

"But I sure get something out of that. It's business, and it's
different. I get money out of it. What do you get out of
books?"

"Points of view, new ideas, life."

"Not worth a cent cash."

"But life's worth more than cash," she argued.

"Oh, well," he said, with easy masculine tolerance, "so long as
you enjoy it. That's what counts, I suppose; and there's no