“I’ll go with ye, sonny,” Lovey explained; “but I ain’t a-goin’ to stay. No Down and Out for mine.”
“You wouldn’t leave me, Lovey?” I begged, as I replaced the empty glass on the counter. “I’m looking to you to help me to keep straight.”
He edged up to me, laying a shaking hand on my arm.
“Oh, if it’s that— But,” he added more cheerfully, “we don’t have to stay no longer than we don’t want to. There’s no law by which they can keep us ag’in’ our will, there ain’t.”
“No, Lovey. If we want to go we’ll go—but we’re buddies, aren’t we? And we’ll stick by each other.”
“Say, you fellows! Quick march! I’ve only got half an hour to get there and back.”
Out in the street, Lovey and I hung behind our guide. He was too brisk and smart and clean for us to keep step with. Alone we could, as we phrased it, get by. With him the contrast called attention to the fact that we were broken and homeless men.
“You go ahead, Pyn—” I began.
“Aw, cut that out!” he returned, scornfully. “Wasn’t I a worse looker than you, two and a half years ago? Old Colonel Straight picked me up from a bench in Madison Square—the very bench from which he’d been picked up himself—and dragged me down to Vandiver Street like a nurse’ll drag a boy that kicks like blazes every step of the way.”