"I'm goin' t' die with ye, then! What's the crime for which we're bein' executed?"
"Listen! Got a letter from the legal luminary this morning," began Whitcomb. "Contents nothing but words and to the effect that the cash is gone. It's now up to me right away to hustle round and get myself some more, somehow. That's not so bad, but it means no more school, or of Brighton, anyway. It means this, too: that I, Herb Whitcomb, have got to get back there among the more lowly where I belong and travel the back alleys awhile—it's only the lucky that can hit the highways. Much pleasure in the thought that some of my old friends are saying: 'Huh! Took a tumble, didn't he? Money ran out. Tried to fly too high in the first place, I guess,' and all that sort of thing. But least pleasant will be that you and I——"
Roy interrupted with a sudden roar.
"'Whurrah! Whurrah!' as me old granddad used to say. Tin-can the blue stuff and the pessimistic rot! There's going to be nothing unpleasant concerning you and I—I mean you and me. And why, me lad? Because do I see meself letting the misfit circumstances of this changeable world make a monkey of me? Yes, I do not! Life is too brief, and sorry the day when one bids good-by to friends and fun; one's a fool who does and as me old granddad in Ireland used to say: 'Bad cest to 'em!' Am I right?"
"No doubt, if I only knew what you were talking about. I can't help being thick-headed."
"Listen, Herb. Ye won't go to work this summer and ye won't quit school! I'm talkin' to ye. Me old dad has enough for the both of us and I'll lend ye enough for to see ye through in grand shape, if ye will coach me along to keep up with ye. Are ye on?"
"Roy, I couldn't do that. I couldn't, really. You know a fellow has some pride, and I——"
"Oh, sure, but tin-can it this once. Ye've got no business to shove it at me and ye know, me lad, I'm never goin' to say one word about this to a single, solitary soul. It's between us only."
"I know that, old man; I would be sure of that, but even then I couldn't—I—you see, I would know it myself, and I could never be quite happy if I weren't paying my own way."