Donaldson snapped away his cigarette.
"No. Why should I? But I 'll have none of it. That damned Barnum, 'Society,' shall not catch me and trim my claws and file my teeth."
He laughed to himself, his lips drawn back a little, rubbing behind the pup's ears. The dog moved sleepily.
"Barstow," he continued more calmly, "this is n't a whine. I 'm not discouraged—it is n't that. I 'm not frightened, nor despondent, nor worried, understand. I know that things will come out all right by the time I 'm fifty, but I shall then be fifty. I 'd like a taste of the jungle now—a week or two of roaming free, of sprawling in the sunshine, of drinking at the living river, of rolling under the blue sky. I 'd like to slash around uncurbed outside the pale a little. I 'd like to do it while I 'm young and strong,—I 'd like to do it now."
"In brief," suggested Barstow, "you desire money."
"Enough so that I might forget there was such a thing."
"Well, you 'll have to sell something of yourself to get it."
"Just so. I won't and there you are. You see I don't fit."
Donaldson paused a moment and then went on.
"You know something of my story, you alone of all this grinding city. You saw me in college and in the law school, where on a coolie diet I did a man's work. But even you don't know how close to hard pan I was during those seven years,—down to crackers and water for weeks at a time."