Chapter X

CHAPTER X

He stopped to dinner that evening, and, much to Ruth's
satisfaction, made a favorable impression on her father. They
talked about the sea as a career, a subject which Martin had at his
finger-ends, and Mr. Morse remarked afterward that he seemed a very
clear-headed young man. In his avoidance of slang and his search
after right words, Martin was compelled to talk slowly, which
enabled him to find the best thoughts that were in him. He was
more at ease than that first night at dinner, nearly a year before,
and his shyness and modesty even commended him to Mrs. Morse, who
was pleased at his manifest improvement.

"He is the first man that ever drew passing notice from Ruth," she
told her husband. "She has been so singularly backward where men
are concerned that I have been worried greatly."

Mr. Morse looked at his wife curiously.

"You mean to use this young sailor to wake her up?" he questioned.

"I mean that she is not to die an old maid if I can help it," was
the answer. "If this young Eden can arouse her interest in mankind
in general, it will be a good thing."

"A very good thing," he commented. "But suppose, - and we must
suppose, sometimes, my dear, - suppose he arouses her interest too
particularly in him?"

"Impossible," Mrs. Morse laughed. "She is three years older than
he, and, besides, it is impossible. Nothing will ever come of it.
Trust that to me."

And so Martin's role was arranged for him, while he, led on by
Arthur and Norman, was meditating an extravagance. They were going
out for a ride into the hills Sunday morning on their wheels, which
did not interest Martin until he learned that Ruth, too, rode a
wheel and was going along. He did not ride, nor own a wheel, but
if Ruth rode, it was up to him to begin, was his decision; and when
he said good night, he stopped in at a cyclery on his way home and
spent forty dollars for a wheel. It was more than a month's hard-
earned wages, and it reduced his stock of money amazingly; but when
he added the hundred dollars he was to receive from the EXAMINER to
the four hundred and twenty dollars that was the least THE YOUTH'S
COMPANION could pay him, he felt that he had reduced the perplexity
the unwonted amount of money had caused him. Nor did he mind, in
the course of learning to ride the wheel home, the fact that he
ruined his suit of clothes. He caught the tailor by telephone that
night from Mr. Higginbotham's store and ordered another suit. Then
he carried the wheel up the narrow stairway that clung like a fire-
escape to the rear wall of the building, and when he had moved his
bed out from the wall, found there was just space enough in the
small room for himself and the wheel.