"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money and couldn't pay your board—and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in that case?"
"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot—"
"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel when—when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
"You knew, then?"
"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but—"
"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, but—"
Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow—"
"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me—and I had to fall down."
"Don't think of that. It's not your fault—"