Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/281

 deliberately, "knows that you've never really worked. Do you want really to work now?"

"No," said Gregg, without taking offense. "I wouldn't go so far as to claim that; but I certainly need to go on drawing pay for the so-called activities which I've been palming off as work."

Billy tossed up his hand in the vehemence of his disgust.

"To mention a few reasons," Gregg went on cheerfully, "not in the order of their moral importance, Bill, but simply as they occur to me in order of inconvenience; bank balance; I'm overdrawn."

"Hummp," said Bill.

"I owe my normal amount of money."

"Including the mortgage on your car?"

"Thanks," said Gregg. "I was forgetting that; thirteen or fourteen hundred more. Oh, look here Bill; I do know the exact amount of the principal—twelve hundred fifty; but I haven't doped the interest. Then I'm rather above normal in the amount I'm back with you in our costs here; ain't I, Bill? Exactly how much?"

Billy faced about with his broad, red face flushing. "You know I'd never bother you about that, Gregg! That's all right," he cried, in one of his sudden somersaults into emotion. "As long as I have a room or a meal, you have half, Gregg; you don't owe me a red cent and you never can!" And he got up and grabbed Gregg's arm and squeezed it.

"The devil I don't and I can't," Gregg acknowledged, unbeautifully; Bill meant it, he knew; and there was warmth about Bill, when he felt like this, which made Gregg glow and almost made him show how he felt about Bill. But that would be maudlin, Gregg said