“If I’m a spendthrift, so are you!” Black challenged. “Why shouldn’t we be, at that? Who gets anything out of life—not to mention giving anything—who isn’t a spendthrift? ‘He who saveth his life shall lose it’—and nobody knows that better than you, Doctor Burns!”
“But you waste yours, you know,” said Burns, with emphasis.
“No more than you do.”
“I do it to save life.”
“And what do I do it for?” The question came back like a shot, with stinging emphasis and challenge.
The two pairs of eyes continued to meet clashingly, and for a minute neither would give way. Then Red said, with a rather grudging admission, “I know you think you have to do all these extras, and you do them with intent and purpose, and willingly, at that. But I don’t back down on my proposition—that you’re working harder at it than is necessary. I’ll admit I want you to do what you can for Cary Ray—for his sister’s sake. But when it comes to the DuBoises, and the Corrigans, and the Andersons—why should you spend yourself on them—ungrateful beggars?”
“I can only ask you, Doctor, why you spend yourself on the Wellands and the Kalanskys, and the Kellys?”
Suddenly Red’s attitude changed, with one of those characteristic quick shifts which made him such delightful company. He looked at his watch and sat down on the log again. “Six minutes to stay, and then back to that blamed committee meeting for yours, and back to my office for me—I can see ten people sitting there now, in my mind’s eye. Hang it—why can’t a fellow stay in the open when it’s there he can be at his best, physically and mentally?”
“It seems to make you a bit pugilistic!”
Red looked up, laughing. “How about you? For a parson it strikes me you can fight back with both fists.”