I tried to buck him up.
“Oh, well, it’s only for a week. We can stand it for that long. They’re very civil to us.”
“But they’re watchin’ of us already like so many cats.”
“Oh no, they’re not. They’re only kind.”
“I don’t want none o’ that sort of kindness. What do ye think that two-foot-four of a Daisy says to me when ’e offered me the loan of ’is razor? ‘Lovey,’ says ’e, ‘I’m goin’ to ’elp ye to knock off the booze. It’ll be terr’ble hard work for an old man like you.’ ‘To ’ell with you!’ says I. ‘Ye ain’t goin’ to ’elp me to do no such thing, because knock it off is somethink I don’t mean.’ ‘Well, what did you come in ’ere for?’ says ’e. ‘I come in ’ere,’ I says to ’im, ‘because my buddy come in ’ere; and wherever ’e goes I’ll foller ’im.’”
“Then that’s understood, Lovey,” I said, cheerfully. “If I go at the end of the week, you go; and if I stay, you stay. We’ll be fellas together.”
He shook his head mournfully.
“If you go at the end of the week, sonny, I go, too; but if you stay—well, I don’t know. I’ve been in jails, but I ’ain’t never been in no such place as this—nobody with no spunk. Look at ’em in there now—nothink but a bunch of simps.”
“You won’t leave me, Lovey?”
The extinct-blue eyes were raised to mine.