"Tough McCarty? Not a bit of it."
"He tried to bully me."
"Why didn't you let them in?" said Butsey, putting the part in the middle of his hair with a dripping comb.
"Why, what do you think they'd have done to you?"
Stover had never thought of that. After all, what could they have done to him?
"I didn't think——"
"Rats!" said Butsey. "They might have pied you on the bed; but that's nothing if you lie face down and keep your elbows in. That's all you'd have got. Then it would have been over; now you've got to square yourself. Well, brush up and come down to supper, and for the love of Mike smile a little."
Butsey White's sentiments neither consoled nor convinced. Stover was too firmly persuaded of the enormity of his offense and the depth of his ignominy.
In all his life he had never done a more difficult thing than to follow Butsey into the dining-room and face the disdainful glances of those from whom he had so lately fled.