“No wonder you get like that, mousing around here without a chance to yappi with a feller critter. ’Nough to make you locoed.
“Jump it for a spell. Go up town. Get loaded. Get horribly loaded. Break somebody’s window, and tell the folks you’re a Sweet Briar zephyr come to blow out their lights. Go ahead and do it. When your hair stops pulling you’ll feel like a new man.”
Jim thought the advice sound, yet a strange feeling had developed in him, in his isolation; it was that the eye of Anne was always on him. He had fallen into a habit, which becomes a superstition when a man is alone, of acting as though she were there in person.
However, he didn’t feel called upon to offer Bud that explanation of his refusal. He conveyed the idea in one brief word.
“Busted,” said he.
“Busted?” retorted Bud warmly. “Busted? Not much, you ain’t busted whilst that little package is there, bet cher life! You call for what you want, and the cashier will make good.”
“Ah, Bud! How’ll I ever pay you back? Keep it, man, keep it,” replied Jim in a disheartened voice.
“Say, you ain’t got no call to worry about that part of it—there’s where my troubles begin,” returned Bud. “Now, you take these two bucks and jab ’em in your jeans—Go on, now! Do as I tell you, or damned if I don’t lick you and make you take ’em! What’s the good of money if it ain’t to help a friend out with? I don’t care who gets drunk on it, just so long as they have a good time.
“Boy, you’ll be sailing up the track regardless of orders, with your boiler full of suds, if you don’t get out in the scramble for a while.”
“Lord! I’d like to see a railroad train! Haven’t heard a whistle for two years! How far is it to the nearest station, Bud?”