He remembered the small Hispanic/Indian man who pushed a shopping cart down the street in all seasons, accepting Joe's returnable bottles with a grateful smile, always saluting as though Joe were a superior.

I had learned that Buckskin Joe was an excellent buffalo horse, and felt confident that I would astonish the natives; galloping in among the buffaloes, I certainly did so by killing thirty-six in less than a half-mile run.

Joe, her husband, was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow, with light curly hair and blue eyes, and he and I were great chums, as well as fellow-sufferers under the rule of my sharp-tongued sister.

"Do you think, Uncle Billy," asked Ralph, "'at Rhymin' Joe was a-tellin' the truth?

" Morgan explained, "Joe was toowhat was itdelicate?" "Careful," Joe said.

Up to that very evening Joe had been merely an average Americanclean of mind and body, cheerful, hard-working, democratic, willing to live and let live, and striving with all his heart and soul for success.

But Joe was always a favorite with mothers.

Joe was a nasty customer, and I could see that I should 'ave to be a bit careful.

Joe was a giant and being a Mormon he could not let go of anything he had.

We may forget that Joe was quite a politician in his prime, we are even loth to recall that there was ever such a play as "Cato," but so long as the English language has power to charm, the dear old volumes of the Spectator will stand out as a delightful landmark of that literature which forms the heritage of American and Briton alike.

Joe's the last boy in the world to have any such notion.

PREFACE Beautiful Joe is a real dog, and "Beautiful Joe" is his real name.

There is no recounting the useful and pretty, if not costly, articles that Joe became possessor of.

Joe became an expert on the trapeze, and, later, when Benny Turton was temporarily in a hospital, Joe "took on" the tank trick.

No,there was a quick step: Joe Hill, lighting the I Joe was a good old chap; never passed a fellow without some joke or other.

"Mamie is a wiry little thing and Joe is a heavyweight, with a hand almost as big as a baseball mit.

"Colonel Joe" was the referee, and a person on these occasions of great importance.

" Joe was never a reluctant convert to anything.

Billy was at his little table next the door; over in the corner the still-despondent Slate was still collapsing; at the east window sat Editor Sally Heffer, digging into a mass of notes; and near the west, at the roll-top desk, a visitor's chair set out invitingly beside him, Joe was writingweird exercise of muttering softly, so as not to disturb the rest, and then scratching down a sentence.

Smells of suppersmells chiefly of cabbage, cauliflower, fried onions, and fried sausagespervaded the hall like an invisible personality, but Joe was smell-proof.

"Joe," she cried, "isn't there any place where we can seethe other people?" There was.

Joe was an athlete, a most likely to succeed guy; yet there he was every weekend in the BX with Shannon, fascinated by the aging bus boy loading his cart.

Joe was one of the regular out-and-out backwoods hunters, both in appearance and in factbroad, tall, massive, lion-like; gifted with the hunting, stalking, running, and trail-following powers of the savage, and with a superabundance of the shooting and fighting powers, the daring, and dash of the Anglo-Saxon.

Anyhow, Joe and Fuz ain't comfortable they ate too many roasted clams and a good deal too much lobster.

" This was a pull of the flaxen forelock; for Joe was a slender, pretty, fair boy, of that delicately-complexioned English type which is not roughened till after many years of exposure.