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 We heard men downstairs now. "Who's that?" I said.

"Must be the bulls; his gang," Jerry glanced at Keeban again, "got out; all that will ever get. Well, come on, bulls; a lot you can hurt me now!"

He looked up from his brother and straightened; and I felt for him perhaps one thousandth of his relief from what had been on him since that night he came into my room, after the Sparlings' dance, and said Keeban had come and gone with Dorothy Crewe.

I put my hand on him while we waited, Doris and he and I, for the approaching steps of the bulls.

"You can go back to anybody now; you can go back to Dorothy Crewe."

"I'll not go back," he told me.

"You wouldn't," I said.

"Are you going back, Steve?"

"Where?" I asked.

"To the bean business and—your Dorothy Crewe?"

"I don't know about going back to the bean business," I said. "And I never had any Dorothy Crewe; but if I had I wouldn't go back to her. No; I know that!"