Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/208

 "Don't do it, then!" "Well, perhaps I would, if I could. I don't know . . . I can't, anyway."

"Have you found anything better?"

Don shook his head. "What's Con doing? Does he ever tell you?"

Pittsey made a significant movement of his hand to his lips, throwing back his head.

Don whispered, aghast: "Drinking?"

Pittsey nodded, with a tolerant smile for Don's blindness. "Don't tell him I told you. He's lost his nerve."

It was late that evening. Pittsey had gone to gather material for an article on "Amateur's Night" in a Bowery theatre. Conroy had been sitting beside the dining-table for hours, smoking sourly, his feet on a chair before him and his eyes fixed on the toes of his shoes. Don had been preparing to speak to him, covering his irresolution by pretending to write a letter while he was trying to make up his mind how to begin.

He had asked: "Found anything to do, Con?" Conroy had grunted: "Not a d thing." And there was no more to be said of that matter. Ten minutes later, he had asked: "Heard anything from home?" And Conroy had answered, in the same tone as before: "Not a d word."

Don scratched perfunctorily at the letter—which, he knew, he would have to destroy. "Have you written to them?" he asked.

"No."

"Why not?"