"My father was a minister," returned the Watermelon. "Yours was a grocer. Billy told me. Families don't count in America."
Bartlett nodded agreement. "Why did you become a tramp?"
"Through inclination, not the whisky bottle. Not that I am above getting full once in a while, 'cause I ain't. Just, I'm not a drunkard. See? I didn't keep on losing jobs through drink and finally had to take to the road because I was a bum. I took to tramping because I hate to work. It takes too much of your time. An office is like a prison to me. A man loses his soul when he stays all day bent over a desk. He isn't a man. He's a sort of up-to-date pianola to a desk, that's all. There's a lot of things to think about that you can't in an office. I wanted to think and so I took to tramping. Besides, I don't like work."
"Lazy—"
"Yes," snapped the Watermelon, "but a man. I love your Billy—my Billy, and I can work for her."
Bartlett nodded indifferently, hardly hearing what the other said. He frowned thoughtfully at the floor as he pondered the situation. If he objected to the youth in Billy's presence, she would stand up for him, all her love would be aroused to arms and she would see no wrong in her hero. If the fellow snapped his fingers, she would run away with him. What did Billy, tender, gently-guarded Billy, know of tramps, of the rough, unhappy side of existence? Nothing. But if she caught a glimpse of it with her own eyes, saw this lover of hers in his true light, dirty, drunk, disreputable, the shock would kill her love utterly and Bartlett would not have to use that authority of his which was no authority, which Billy would refuse to obey. She had been free too long for any one to govern her now. The only person who could effectually break the unfortunate tangle was the Watermelon himself. Bartlett glanced at the gloomy face beside him and read it as he had grown used to reading men and events.
The Watermelon was young, hardly older than Billy; he was desperately in love, with a love that was pure and true and generous. He was thinking of Billy and not of himself. His opposition to Bartlett was merely the anger aroused by Bartlett's sneers. He was in reality filled with humility and repentence to a degree that he would do anything to kill the love Billy bore for him, knowing with his man's knowledge that he was not worthy of her, and longing with his youth and love to sacrifice himself for her best good, seeing through young, unhappy eyes, only the past, his own shame and profession. Forgetting the possibilities of the future, he had gone to the extreme of self-loathing. The one thing he saw was his past, that past that was wholly unfit for Billy. It blocked the entire view, crushed him with the weight of inexorable facts. To the young there are but two colors, black and white, and the Watermelon was very young. Bartlett looked at him keenly and decided that his plan would work, that he would not have to take a last desperate and ineffectual stand against Billy.
"See here. In August we are going to our place in Westhaven. It's a small town in this state, up the coast away north of Portland. Come to her there at the end of August, come as you are, a tramp, dirty, shabby, drunk—"
"I don't drink, not as the others do."
"Come drunk. Let her understand what being a tramp means, what your life has been. If she still wants you, I hardly see how I can stop her. That's only fair, for what does she know about you and your life? You know all about her, what she has done and been and is going to do. Leave her now, this evening. Go on being a tramp and then come to her, at the last of August. Come as a tramp, mind. Don't let her think that it is a test she is being put to or she will only laugh at it and us and go on wanting you just the same, scorning to be tested, to think that her love could fail. Give her some other excuse for your going. You must see that it is only fair to the little girl to let her see what she is up against."