trousers and blouse in the dryers without wringing them (wringing, he had been told, wrinkled them).  He rinsed and wrung, and flapped the underclothes, though, and shaped his cap carefully, and spread his leggings, and hung those in the dryer, too.  And finally, with a deep sigh of accomplishment, he filled one of the bathtubs in the adjoining room—­filled it to the slopping-over point with the luxurious hot water, and he splashed about in this, and reclined in it, gloriously, until the waiting ones threatened to pull him out.  Then he dried himself and issued forth all flushed and rosy.  He wrapped himself in a clean coarse sheet, for his clothes would not be dry for another half hour.  Swathed in the sheet like a Roman senator he lay down on one of the green velvet couches, relics of past Pullman glories, and there, with the rumble and roar of steel trains overhead, with the smart click of the billiard balls sounding in his ears, with the phonograph and the electric piano going full blast, with the boys dancing and larking all about the big room, he fell sound asleep as only a boy cub can sleep.

When he awoke an hour later his clothes were folded in a neat pile by the deft hand of some jackie impatient to use the drying space for his own garments.  Tyler put them on.  He stood before a mirror and brushed his hair until it glittered.  He drew himself up with the instinctive pride and self respect that comes of fresh clean clothes against the skin.  Then he placed his absurd round hat on his head at what he considered a fetching angle, though precarious, and sallied forth on the streets of Chicago in search of amusement and adventure.

He found them.

Madison and Canal streets, west, had little to offer him.  He sensed that the centre of things lay to the east, so he struck out along Madison, trying not to show the terror with which the grim, roaring, clamorous city filled him.  He jingled the small coins in his pocket and strode along, on the surface a blithe and carefree jackie on shore leave; a forlorn and lonely Texas boy, beneath.

It was late afternoon.  His laundering, his ablutions and his nap had taken more time than he had realised.  It was a mild spring day, with just a Lake Michigan evening snap in the air.  Tyler, glancing about alertly, nevertheless felt dreamy, and restless, and sort of melting, like a snow-heap in the sun.  He wished he had some one to talk to.  He thought of the man on the train who had said, with such easy confidence, “I got a date.”  Tyler wished that he too had a date—­he who had never had a rendezvous in his life.  He loitered a moment on the bridge.  Then he went on, looking about him interestedly, and comparing Chicago, Illinois, with Marvin, Texas, and finding the former sadly lacking.  He passed LaSalle, Clark.  The streets were packed.  The noise and rush tired him, and bewildered him.  He came to a moving picture theatre—­one of the many that dot the district.  A girl occupied