Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/210

 your chance—not to take you home like a 'whipped cur'"

"Who's a whipped cur?" he shouted.

Don shouted back at him: "He said he didn't want you to be a whipped cur! I told him those fellows at college had led you into it—the trouble. You said so yourself. Now, here you are, doing the same thing again."

"You're a liar!"

"Well, I'm not going to lie to him. I'm not going to be responsible for you if you drink."

"You sneak! It's the money, is it? You want to get rid of me to save the miserable dollar a week you've been doling out to me. If it hadn't been for me, you'd never have had it to lend."

Don, his anger exhausted, felt himself oppressed with a great weariness, buffeted in this ignoble quarrel. He put his hands up to his temples, his elbows on the table, gone dumb.

Conroy went on crazily: "You needn't be afraid. I'll pay you back some way. If I don't, you can make out your bill and collect it from mother."

Don did not reply.

"Who said I was drinking? What concern is it of yours—or his—if I am? Why doesn't he do something to help me along, if he's so blamed anxious about me? If you'd been chucked out, without a cent, in a place where you couldn't get a thing to do, you'd want something too, to—to keep yourself up."

"You're not without a cent. I'll give you all the money you want, if you'll promise not to spend it that way."