In and Out

by Edgar Franklin

"Mr. Fry!" gasped David.

"Well, has this mollycoddle stuff in the air infected you, too?" Johnson Boller asked tartly. "Don't you want to be a man?"

"No!"

Johnson Boller laughed scornfully.

"Anthony, I think your presence is a bad influence," he said. "Will you please get out of here? Shed that bathrobe, kid, and let's see if there's anything to you but pulp!"

"No!" said David.

"Well, I say yes, and I say it for your own good!" Johnson Boller said firmly as he advanced. "I'm going to make a man of you!"

"You can't!" said David thinly.

"I can, boy! Believe me, I can!" Mr. Boller smiled. "Get out of that robe!"

He was advancing. Ten seconds more and he would lay violent hands on David, and Anthony Fry, with a wrench that racked his very soul, hurled back every emotion and contrived a really quiet smile. More, even; when he spoke it was in the tone of one merely amused and slightly tried in patience.