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54 He sat silent for a minute or two and then con« tinued more gently. Kane. She “My old lady never came to never will come wants to give me a real chance. here, See? either. She She knows she is n’t a lady—but—but, oh, God, Hugh, she’s white, white as hell. I guess I think more of her than all the rest of the world put together. That’s why I write to her every night. She writes to me every day, too. The letters have mistakes in them, but—but they keep me straight. That is, they have so far. I know, though, that some night I ’ll be out with a bag and get too much liquor in me—> and then good-by, virginity.”

“You ’re crazy, Carl. You know you won’t.”

Carl rose from the chair and stretched hugely.

“You ’re a good egg, Hugh,” he said in the midst of a yawn, “but you ’re a damn fool.” Hugh started. to Morse. That was just what he had said

He never caught Carl in a confidential mood again. The next morning he was his old flippant self, swearing because he had to study his Latin, which was n’t “of any damned use to anybody.”

In the following weeks Hugh religiously clung to Morse, helped him with his work, went to the movies with him, inveigled him into going on sev¬ eral long walks. Morse was more cheerful and almost pathetically grateful. One day, however,