Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/167

 good as her own pure self. I went down there—well, I wanted to tell her I had not been square. Listen, Runt! She thinks that you have reformed me. She believes you to be the best man in the world, next to your father. She said: 'I knew Hunter would bring you round all right!' She knew I had been bad, she said, by the way—by the way I acted. But she thinks her brother has been an angel all the time; and you have been as bad as I have, and it's all my own dirty doing. I dragged you with me (Shut up! I did!)—I've been your evil influence ever since we first roomed together at the "prep" school—ever since we dumped the coal on (Shut up!) Mr. Beaman. I am the one that started you on the road to hell, and now I can't stop you"

"Cork up, Red!" the other at last broke in. He was swallowing hard. So was Reddy.

At first the gang laughed. There was indeed something amusing about it all. But when they saw that the two little Dead