“I know. Let’s toddle along. I have been to a pretty stodgy dinner and the walk will do me good. No you don’t—I’ll carry that basket of goodies, if you please. What else am I good for, I’d like to know?”
All the way down Eleventh Street to Larimer, and over the Cherry Creek bridge to the cross street leading to the dubious district centered by the Corinthian varieties and gambling rooms, Bromley was trying once more to decide whether or not to say the word which, as he made sure, would reopen the grievous wound in the sore heart of his companion.
But when at last he took her arm to help her up the dark stair in the disreputable tenement opposite the Corinthian, the word was still unspoken. And the thing he was hoping for most devoutly was that they might be permitted to do their charitable errand and win back to better breathing air without running afoul of the man who, as he had ample reason to know, was now no stranger to the purlieus below Larimer Street.
XXVI
After he had rued his bargain with the Jew second-hand man—paying a stiff forfeit for the privilege—and had reëstablished himself in his rooms in the Alamo, Philip slipped back into the drifting current which had been only momentarily arrested by the Mona Connaghey episode, turning day into night and night into day, gambling a little, drinking a little, assiduously avoiding the few daylight friends he had made, and adding nightly to a different and more numerous collection, some of whom were grateful for the largesse he scattered, while others regarded him only as a soft-hearted fool to be played upon and cozened out of his money as occasion might offer.
It was at this time that Middleton, the fat-faced railroad clerk, appealed to him for help, and Philip heard the appeal with the tolerant, half-amused smile which aptly mirrored his changed point of view. A younger brother of Middleton’s had recently joined the rush to the golden West, and Middleton had secured him a railroad clerkship in the freight station. So far, so good; but almost immediately, it seemed, the boy had been caught in the wide-spreading net of dissipation and was in a fair way to be ruined.
“It is only gambling, for a beginning; but since he is in the cashier’s office, handling company money, that is bad enough,” Middleton said. “It won’t take him very long to find out that his salary won’t be a drop in the bucket when it comes to going up against the skin games.”
“Well, why don’t you take him in hand?” Philip asked, the thin-lipped smile accentuating itself.
Middleton flushed uncomfortably.
“I was expecting you’d say that. But you know how a kid bucks at taking anything from an older brother. Besides, I can’t say that I’ve been setting him any too good an example.”