“Them swells’ll take you away, sonny. See if they don’t.”
“Not from you, Lovey.”
He grabbed me by the arm.
“Will you promise me that, Slim?”
“Yes, Lovey; I promise you.”
“And we’ll go on being buddies, even when the rich guys talks to you about all them swell things?”
“Yes, Lovey. We’re buddies for life.”
With this Mizpah between us he released my arm and I was able to go and make my preparations.
In spite of the heat and the fact that on a windless day there was no dust to speak of, Cantyre was buttoned up in a dust-coat. It would have seemed the last word in tact if he hadn’t gone further by pretending to be occupied in doing something to the steering-wheel while I hid my seedy blue serge in the long linen garment he handed me out. As even an old golf-cap can look pretty decent, I was really like anybody else by the time I had snuggled myself in by his side.
During the first mile or two of the way I could hardly listen to Cantyre, to say nothing of making conversation. In spasmodic sentences between his spells of attention to the traffic he told me of his patient and where she lived; but as it was nothing I was obliged to register in my mind, I could give myself to the wonder of the occasion, in awe at the miracle which had restored me to something like my old place in the world at the very moment when I seemed farthest away from it. Here I was, with not a penny to my name and not two coats to my back, tooling along like a gentleman with a gentleman, and as a man with his friend. Moreover, here I was with a new revelation, a convincing revelation, of something I had long since ceased to believe—that in this world there was such a thing as active brotherly kindness.