Don brushed his hair back heavily from his forehead. It was but little browner than his face. The gesture reminded Brian irresistibly of Kenny, Kenny in rebellion.
"It isn't the college part," Don said hopelessly. "There I think I'd get through. And I'd like to be an engineer. It's the year here. An entrance examination would be stiff, wouldn't it, Brian?"
"Yes."
"I know chunks of a lot of things I don't need, almost nothing of things I ought to know a lot about. When I liked a thing, I studied. And when I didn't I let it slide. It worried my sister. And I work by fits and starts when there's nobody around to keep me at it. Up here alone, working all day and studying half the night, I'd never swing it. It would mean the hardest kind of work."
"Once," said Brian, "I saw you chop wood for thirteen hours."
"You were there."
"And down there in the quarry Grogan says you can load more stone to the hour than two wops."
"You're there feeding the crusher. And you work as hard as I do."
Brian rose. His pipe was out. He knew as he knocked the ashes into a saucer and filled again from a bowl of tobacco upon the mantel, that Donald's eyes were upon him, abject with misery and remorse. But neither spoke.
Irritable and upset, Brian went out upon the porch.