'Yes. They drove up in a trap. I saw it outside. We weren't but three tables away from them. They saw everything. Mamie, she——'
'After all, Hen. It's disturbing and all that, but you were getting pretty tired of Martha——'
'It isn't that, Hump 1 I don't know that I was. I get mixed. But it's the shame, the disgrace. The Ameses have been down on me anyway, for something that happened two years ago. And now...! And Martha, she's—well, can't you see, Hump? It's just as if there's no use of my trying to stay in this town any longer. They'll all be down on me now. They'll whisper about me. They're doing it now. I feel it when I walk up Simpson Street. They're going to mark me for that kind of fellow, and I'm not.'
His face sank into his hands.
Humphrey considered him; said, 'Of course you're not;' considered him further. Then he said, reflectively: 'It's unpleasant, of course, but I'll confess I can't see that what you've told me justifies the words “shame” and “disgrace.” They're strong words, my boy. And as for leaving town... See here, Hen | Is there anything you haven't told me?'
The bowed head inclined a little farther.
'Hadn't you better tell me? Did anything happen afterward? Has the girl got—well, a real hold on you?' The head moved slowly sidewise. 'We fought afterward, all the way home. Rowed. Jawed at each other like a pair of little muckers. No, it isn't that. I hated her all the time. I told her I was through with her. She tried to catch me in the hall this morning, up on the third floor. Came sneaking to my room again. With towels. That's why I wrote in the library.'
'But you aren't telling me what the rest of it was.'
'She—oh, she drank beer, and——'
'That's what most everybody does at Hoffmann's. The beer's good there.'