"William, are you going to begin all that over again?"
"I don't know what you mean by again. John, you talk in riddles. I can't for the life of me get at your meaning. Yes, sir, and last night you flew off like a jug handle when I told you that Carl Miller—"
"Oh, damn Carl Miller."
"That's all right. I don't care how much you damn him. He deserves it—broke a pair of boots for me and made 'em so kidney footed that I couldn't walk in 'em. But I am positive about that other date, John. It was the tenth."
The Judge looked at him, drew a long breath, and said: "William, you are an old fool."
"An old fool, John—old? Did you say old?"
"That is what I said. Old."
William sighed. "Then, that settles it. It isn't so bad to be simply a fool—for we may grow out of that as time goes on—but to be an old fool—John, I'll leave your house. I can't stand your abuse any longer. I am without means, broke, you might say, and I don't know which way to turn, except to turn my back on your ill-treatment of me. I may starve to death or be killed in the street or on some freight car, stealing a ride from misery to misery, but I am going."
"William, sit down and behave yourself."
"Never again will I sit down in your house. I have joked with you, I know, and have said a great many things that I didn't mean, but I am in deadly earnest this time. I am going away."