Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/297

 he'll never forgive it. I might as well get out now. It'll be a dog's life. Where are you going?"

"Don't be absurd." He put down his hat. "I'm not going any place. Lend me your mattress, and I'll sleep on the floor."

Don shook his head.

"But if he needed looking after—before," Pittsey coaxed, "he'll need it a hundred times more now. He won't have a sou to pay rent. You don't intend to leave it all to Bert, do you?"

"No, but"

"Well, then, don't be foolish. Lend me your mattress and a blanket, and I'll sleep here."

"It's no use," Don said. "I can't stay."

However, after a weakening argument, he compromised by sleeping on the floor himself, giving Walter the bare springs of the cot—which they had carried out into the dining-room. He heard Conroy snoring in a heavy stupor through the night; and in the morning he was willing to accept his cousin's enmity as freeing him from a responsibility which he did not feel himself able to discharge.

Their breakfast was a constrained and unhappy meal, in spite of Bert Pittsey's attempt to make a joke of the night's discomforts. "Your back must look like a waffle, Walt," he laughed, "with the pattern of those springs on it."

"Well," Walter replied, "I didn't notice you putting yourself out any."

Bert flushed at his brotherly dig. Conroy carried himself as if Walter had been justly punished for his