At the corner Sandy stopped and looked around to be sure of his bearings when he returned. He marked in his mind the signboard advertising CHESTERFIELDS and the frame-house with the tumbledown stairs on the outside. In the street some kids were playing hopscotch under the arc-light. Somebody stopped beside him.

“Nice evening?” said a small yellow man with a womanish kind of voice, smiling at Sandy.

“Yes,” said the boy, starting across the street, but the stranger followed him, offering Pall Malls. He smelled of perfume, and his face looked as though it had been powdered with white talcum as he lit a tiny pocket-lighter.

“Stranger?” murmured the soft voice, lighting Sandy’s cigarette.

“I’m from Stanton,” he replied, wishing the man had not chosen to walk with him.

“Ah, Kentucky,” exclaimed the perfumed fellow. “I been down there. Nice women in that town, heh?”

“But it’s not Kentucky,” Sandy objected. “It’s Kansas.”

“Oh, out west where the girls are raring to go! I know! Just like wild horses out there—so passionate, aren’t they?”

“I guess so,” Sandy ventured. The powdered voice was softly persistent.

“Say, kid,” it whispered smoothly, touching the boy’s arm, “listen, I got some swell French pictures up in my room—naked women and everything! Want to come up and see them?”

“No,” said Sandy quickening his pace. “I got to go somewhere.”

“But I room right around the corner,” the voice insisted. “Come on by. You’re a nice kid, you know it? Listen, don’t walk so fast. Stop, let me talk to you.”

But Sandy was beginning to understand. A warm sweat broke out on his neck and forehead. Sometimes, at the pool hall in Stanton, he had heard the men talk about queer fellows who stopped boys in the streets and tried to coax them to their rooms.

“He thinks I’m dumb,” thought Sandy, “but I’m wise to him!” Yet he wondered what such men did with the boys who accompanied them. Curious, he’d like to find out—but he was afraid; so at the next corner he turned and started rapidly towards State Street, but the queer fellow kept close beside him, begging.

“. . . and we’ll have a nice time.... I got wine in the room, if you want some, and a vic, too.”

“Get away, will you!”

They had reached State Street where the lights were bright and people were passing all the time. Sandy could see the fellow’s anxious face quite clearly now.

“Listen, kid . . . you . . .”

But suddenly the man was no longer beside him—for Sandy commenced to run. On the brightly lighted avenue panic seized him. He had to escape this powdered face at his shoulder. The whining voice made him sick inside—and, almost without knowing it, his legs began swerving swiftly between the crowds along the curb. When he stopped in front of the Monogram Theatre, two blocks away, he was freed of his companion.

“Gee, that’s nice,” panted Sandy, grinning as he stood looking at the pictures in front of the vaudeville house, while hundreds of dark people passed up and down on the sidewalk behind him. Lots of folks were going into the theatre, laughing and pushing, for one of the great blues-singing Smiths was appearing there. Sandy walked towards the ticket-booth to see what the prices were.