"Hold on there, Dalrymple," interposed Mackay, stepping out. "Come across with that eighty-six bucks you owe me."
"I—I haven't got it, Mackay," rejoined the boy, flushing deeply.
Lane ripped open his coat and jerked out his pocket-book and tore bills out of it. "There, Hardy Mackay," he said, with deliberate scorn, throwing the money on the table. "There are your eighty-six dollars—earned in France.... I should think it'd burn your fingers."
He drew Holt out into the hall, where Pepper waited. Some one slammed the door and began to curse.
"That ends that," said Colonel Pepper, as the three moved down the dim hall.
"It ends us, Pepper, but you couldn't stop those guys with a crowbar," retorted Dalrymple.
Lane linked arms with the boy and changed the conversation while they walked back to the inn. Here Colonel Pepper left them, and Lane talked to Holt for an hour. The more he questioned Holt the better he liked him, and yet the more surprised was he at the sordid fact of the boy's inclination toward loose living. There was something perhaps that Holt would not confess. His health had been impaired in the service, but not seriously. He was getting stronger all the time. His old job was waiting for him. His mother and sister had enough to live on, but if he had been working he could have helped them in a way to afford him great satisfaction.
"Holt, listen," finally said Lane, with more earnestness. "We're friends—all boys of the service are friends. We might even become great pards, if we had time."
"What's time got to do with it?" queried the younger man. "I'm sure I'd like it—and know it'd help me."
"I'm shot to pieces, Holt.... I won't last long...."