“By the way, Peewee, I’m resigning, of course, and leaving tomorrow on the five o’clock. Probably’ll have to borrow some dough. I’d like to take a last ride, so keep things quiet until I get it, eh?”
Penoch nodded wordlessly. Cocky as he was ordinarily, and sure of himself, he was nonplussed now. Kennedy had turned into a strange species of animal to him, and he couldn’t believe it.
“And now,” grinned Kennedy, keeping up his bluff to the last, “will you two get the hell out of here and let a gentleman and a scholar get drunk in peace and quiet?”
“Don’t want any company?” Penoch asked him, and there was real pleading in his tone.
For the first time in our acquaintance I saw actual softness in Kennedy’s eyes, as he looked at the man he had liked and admired as much as it had been possible for him to feel those emotions for anybody.
“Nope. Let’s shuck the past, eh what? What the hell? And I’ve got to do a little high-powered thinking. ’Night.”
We walked thoughtfully out into the starlight. Then I made a profound remark.
“I’ve heard of the miracles that love is supposed to work, but this is the first one I’ve seen. I think the combination of you risking your life for him, and a real unselfish feeling for a girl, has sort of opened up a new world to Kennedy. He’s got guts, hasn’t he?”
“Never lacked those,” boomed Penoch. “At that, you may be right. I guess he’s always figured every hand was against him—and now that he’s found out there’s a little white in the world he doesn’t know what to make of it. He proved himself, all right, tonight, but if he’d told me that this afternoon I’d have laughed as hard as I would over a romantic yarn about the honeymoon of a salmon.”
“’Night. I don’t feel much like talking.”