“But not such eggs,” said the doctor. “See, boys, what a lovely color these eggs are.”
“We couldn’t take them under fifty cents a dozen,” said Jimmy Pendleton.
And Mrs. Ryder’s New England conscience was carried by storm, and the total sum of fifteen dollars travelled from various pockets to her ancient leather purse.
“Now, I’ll do some tradin’ at the store,” she announced with perfect confidence in their interest.
“You run along with your eggs to headquarters, Saint Peter,” ordered the ambassador, “and we’ll wander back and meet you.” And the big touring-car had glided away.
Ellsworth, among the others through this episode, contributing his share, had yet felt himself an outsider. To all of these men the dollar given the old country woman was less than nothing; to him it was an item. As he realized what this difference stood for, he felt himself of another world. There were men among these far from rich, but he was the only one who might not throw away a dollar. And with that a rush of despair came over him. Why had he come? Why had he let Margaret persuade him? He must go back and face a life doubly hard because of this taste of care-free life. Nothing had happened which could help him; nothing would happen. Margaret’s eyes would ask, and he would not be able to meet her eyes. He felt physically sick as he thought of that. No one had spoken of his work except in general terms; he had shrunk from details because he had no record of work accomplished. There had been a glow of happiness in seeing the remembered faces, in hearing the old voices; they had been glad to see him, friendly, quick to give him his ancient place of honor among them. In the rush of the first days, in the levelling atmosphere which the blue blouses created, he had forgotten till this moment that these were successful men; that he was that grim thing—a failure. The kindly farce of the old woman and her eggs waked him. Not one of “the fellows” was poor as he was poor. Even Jimmy Pendleton—but, Ellsworth reflected, what did he know about that? Jimmy at fifty-two was the natural development of Jimmy at twenty-two, short, mild of face, carefully dressed, chubbier; his shoe-brush mop of black hair replaced on top by a shining baldness. There was a half-deprecating air about Jimmy which seemed to tell of a career not too glorious; it was comforting to Ellsworth.
Yet even Jimmy had tried to pay the old lady two dollars a dozen for thirty dozen eggs. Sixty dollars! Ellsworth, sauntering across the sunny green, bit his lip. How many years was it since he had spent sixty dollars thoughtlessly? When he and Margaret were married there had been enough; they had not worried when his models had taken large sums and had not returned them. But now there was no money even when its return would be certain. He thought with a pang of his flying-machine, the long-sought sure thing, doomed to lie idle till some luckier man should invent one like it and win fame and fortune. How “the fellows” would have patted him on the shoulder if he had had that success to bring to the reunion! It was cruelly unjust; he was torn with keener suffering than he had felt in all the years before.
By now the party had turned into the big house, where a blue banner hung out with the legend in white letters: “Headquarters of the Class of —.” Blue blouses poured from rooms to meet them; voices and laughter filled all the place; Saint Peter was back, and he and his eggs were the joke of the moment. Ellsworth shot through the gay crowd and made his way to a little smoking-room. No one was there. He dropped into a chair by a table; his arms stretched out, and his head fell on them. Down and out. The men’s laughter rang through the hall. Why had he come? What could these men, with their full lives, their honors, and their large affairs, care for a bit of wreckage washed among them by a chance wave from the lost sea of boyhood? He would go back to the woman who loved him and whose life he had filled with disappointments, and carry to her this disappointment more. Down and out.
“Johnny.”
He started angrily and stared up at the man whose hand was on his shoulder.