Then he climbed up into the bleak unsympathetic sky. All around him were benches empty, ugly, comfortless. And looking back, he was aware of Salvation Joe standing with arms folded across his scarlet paunch, eructating on the steps of the Hotel.
BOOK VI
THE QUEST
CHAPTER XLV
OLD MUS BOAM
Ernie was not adventurous except where his heart was concerned.
He had the homing tendency of the affectionate nature.
When he left the Hohenzollern Hotel in Sea-gate he made straight as a bird for Old Town. But he did not go to Rectory Walk. He was out of work now, at the slack season of the year, too. He knew very well what his brother Alf's attitude towards him would be, and was by no means certain of his mother's: for she, too, worshipped success and efficiency in all men but the one dependent on her.
Therefore he went to an old school-fellow of his, married now, and established in the Moot at the back of the Star, and made arrangements to lodge with him.
His immediate future was secure, for he still had a pound or two in hand. And long ago he had adopted the outlook on life of the class which had absorbed him—an outlook natural to them, because inevitable, and acquired by him—the outlook that sees To-day but shuts its eyes to save itself from To-morrow.
Old Town is small and has long ears. It was soon known that Ernie Caspar was "out," and the cause of his dismissal was discussed by all and hinted at by not a few.