He paused to relight his pipe.
Aladdin stared up at the tattered ceiling with wide, wondering eyes.
“When you got warm,” said Manners, “I gave you all the rest of the whisky, and I’m sorry it made you sick, and now you’re as fit as a fiddle.”
“Fit-as-a-fiddle,” said Aladdin, slowly, as the wonder grew. And then he began to cry like a little child. Manners waited till he had done, and then wiped his face for him.
“So you see,” said Manners, simply, though with difficulty,—for he was a man shy, to terror, of discussing his own feelings,—“I can’t help liking you now, and—and I hope you won’t feel so hard toward me any more.”
“I feel hard toward you!” said Aladdin. “Oh, Manners!” he cried. “I thought all along that you were just a man that knew about horses and dogs, but I see, I see; and I’m not going to worship anybody any more except you and God, I’m not!”
Then he had another great long, hot cry. Manners waited patiently till it was over.
“Manners,” said Aladdin, in a choky, hoarse voice, “I think you’re different from what you used to be. You look as if—as if you ‘d got the love of mankind in you.”
Manners did not answer. He appeared to be thinking of something wonderful.
“Do you think that’s it?” cried Aladdin.