'No, I won't pay anything like three.'
'I wouldn't go a cent under two.'
'Well—two thousand then. All right. I'll let you know by to-morrow night.'
'You understand, Henry, it ain't the money. It's for the good o' the town I'm doing it. To keep peace, y' understand. That's why I'm doing it. Y' understand that, Henry.' He actually reached over the fence and hung to the boy's arm.
'We'd better shake hands on it,' said Henry.
'Sure! I'll stand by it, if you will.'
'I will. Good-bye, now.'
And Henry, somewhat confused regarding his ethical position, depressed at the thought that you couldn't rise altogether out of this hard world, that you had to live right in it, compromise with it, let yourself be soiled by it—Henry, his eyes down to beads, flushed about the temples, caught the eight-six to Chicago.
He rode out to the West Side on a cable-car. It is an interesting item to note in the rather zig-zag development of Henry's highly emotional nature that he never once weakened during that long ride. He was burning up, of course. It was like that wonderful week when he had written day and night, night and day, the Simpson Street stories. But it was, in a way, glorious. That ethereal electricity was flowing right through him. The Power was on him. He knew, not in his surface mind but in the deeper seat of all belief, in his feelings, that he couldn't be stopped or headed. Not to-night.