Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/308

296 you 've got it now. They 've seized everything." He saw Redney, and threw out a hand at him, passionately, shaking the handkerchief. "Get out of here. Get out."

Redney nodded. "I 'm goin'. Come on, mom."

She jabbed in her hat-pins. "That 's my son," she said. "That 's my boy. He 's offered me a home, Now, then!"

The Professor looked from one to the other, with his scowl of anger slowly fading till his face was a gape of staring astonishment.

"You 've never treated me right," she cried. "Never! I 've given you everything—worked fer you an' everything. I 'm not goin' to do it no more."

He sat down among the cushions, blinking, with a sort of stunned look that was pitiable enough to accuse her of inhumanity.

"You 've made my— It 's been a cat an' dog life," she defended herself. "You 've brought it on yerself. I wanted to do what was right. You 've no one but yerself to blame."

He tried to pull himself together, with a return of his pride.

"I don't want to leave you on the street," she said, relentingly. She looked around at Redney. "I s'pose, if he—until he gets work somewhere—"

The Professor drew himself up. "No!" His voice was no more than a croak. "No!" His vanity would not let him—or if not his vanity, then his self-respect. He did not know how dependent he was; we none of us do. He had regarded himself as a masterly,