CHAPTER L
Late that afternoon Joe Wilkinson and Dan came slowly up the street, toward the Boyd house. The light of battle was still in Dan's eyes, his clothes were torn and his collar missing, and he walked with the fine swagger of the conqueror.
“Y'ask me,” he said, “and I'll tell the world this thing's done for. It was just as well to let them give it a try, and find out it won't work.”
Joe said nothing. He was white and very tired, and a little sick.
“If you don't mind I'll go in your place and wash up,” he remarked, as they neared the house. “I'll scare the kids to death if they see me like this.”
Edith was in the parlor. She had sat there almost all day, in an agony of fear. At four o'clock the smallest Wilkinson had hammered at the front door, and on being admitted had made a shameless demand.
“Bed and thugar,” she had said, looking up with an ingratiating smile.
“You little beggar!”
“Bed and thugar.”