“I’ll get him in. I’ve handled ’em before.”
Routt hesitated: but there was nothing to do but obey, and he obeyed. Congressman Amos Caretall, in carpet slippers, nightshirt, and faded bath robe, watched them go; and then he turned to where Wint had slouched down against the tree and said kindly:
“Well, Wint—come on in.”
Wint wagged his head and began to sing. The Congressman bent over him and slapped him expertly upon the cheeks with his open hands, one hand and then the other. The sting and smart of the blows seemed to dispel some of the clouds that fuddled Wint, and he grinned sheepishly, and got to his feet. Amos put his arm around him. “Come on, Wint,” he said again.
They went thus slowly up the walk and into the house. Amos shut the front door behind them, and led Wint to the stairs and up them.
In the upper hall, one electric bulb was burning; and as they came into its light, Agnes came out of her room. Her soft, fair hair was down her back; her eyes were dewy with sleep; and a flaming, silken garment was drawn close about her. “What is it, dad?” she asked: and then saw Wint lurching along on her father’s arm with nodding head and dull and drunken eyes, and she laughed softly and stepped toward him and shook her finger in his face. “Oh, you Wint! Naughty boy!” she chided.
Her father said sharply: “Get into your room, Agnes!” The girl looked at him, and at the anger in his eyes she turned a little pale and slipped silently away.
Amos took Wint to his room, where Wint fell helplessly across his bed and began instantly to snore. The Congressman looked down at him for an instant with a grim sort of pity mingled with the anger in his eyes. Then he bent and loosened Wint’s shoes and drew them off; and afterward he took off the boy’s collar, and unbuttoned his garments at the throat, and unbuckled his belt so that his sodden body should nowhere be constricted.
“I guess that’ll do, Wint,” he said slowly then. “You’re too heavy for me to handle. Besides, Wint—you ain’t right clean.” He stood for a moment longer, then turned toward the door. At the door he looked back once, snapped out the light, and so was gone.
Wint’s snores were unbroken.