This trying ordeal over he hurried back to the room to find Johnson. The room had a rather desolate look and Scott was wondering what was the matter with it when he spied a note on the table. He read it half dazed.
Since you did not carry out your promise to move, I moved myself. I have some self-respect.
Johnson.
It was Johnson’s one great short-coming, lack of tact, and Scott’s longing for forgiveness turned once more to anger. He was blinded to the kindness which had prompted Johnson to warn him and forgot the insults with which he had received it. He could see in it now only an impertinent interference in his private affairs and railed against Johnson as a mucker who would not accept an apology even when he did not deserve it. He forgot that Johnson knew nothing of his change of heart, and felt bitter against him. All thought of apology had vanished.
He was still in this frame of mind when Greenleaf came into the room.
“Hello, Scotty,” he said, “I met Johnson moving his belongings a while ago. Said you and he had a falling out. They have sold the house where I am rooming and are going to turn me out. Do you want a roommate?”
“Sure,” Scott said promptly, “I’ll help you move in now.”
So the door was closed to Johnson’s return. The new arrangement gave Scott little chance to think it over. Had he thought the matter over calmly he would probably have sought Johnson out and apologized to him at any cost to his own pride, but he did not let himself think about it and harbored his unjust bitterness.
Greenleaf was a different type from Johnson. His father was a well-to-do lawyer who could very readily have allowed his son ample spending money and would have done so in the East, but preferred to follow the Western custom and make the boy earn his pocket money. Consequently Greenleaf, although blessed with a comfortable—even a luxurious—home had spent most of his summers working at any kind of a job that he could get. He made a very congenial roommate, but Scott missed in him the breadth of mind and keen reasoning powers which he had admired so much in Johnson.