“Well, hell!” Casey exploded abruptly.  “I’m honest and hard-workin’ as any damn preacher.  You can ask anybody!”

“Well, that’s what he said, anyhow.  We certainly didn’t know you was a gambler when we offered to give you a benefit.  We certainly never dreamed you’d queer us like that.  But you’ll do us the favor to lend us your car, won’t you?  You wouldn’t refuse that, and see me and little Junior languishin’ in jail when you know in your heart—­”

“Aw, take the darn car!” muttered Casey distractedly, and hobbled into the garage office where he knew Bill kept liniment.

Five minutes, perhaps, after that, Casey opened the office door wide enough to fling out an assortment of straps and two crutches.

The show lady turned and made a motion which Casey mentally called a pounce.  “Oh, thank you, Mister!  We certainly wouldn’t want to go off and forget these props.  Jack dear has to use them in a comedy sketch we put on sometimes when we got a good house.”

Casey banged the door and said something exceedingly stage-driverish which a lady should by no means overhear.

Sounds from the rear of the garage indicated that Casey’s Ford was r’arin’ to go, as Casey frequently expressed it.  Voices were jumbled in the tones of suggestions, commands, protest.  Casey heard the show lady’s clear treble berating Jack dear with thin politeness.  Then the car came snorting forward, paused in the wide doorway, and the show lady’s voice called out clearly, untroubled as the voice of a child after it has received that which it cried for.

“Well, good-by, Mister!  You certainly are a godsend to give us the loan of your car!” There was a buzz and a splutter, and they were gone—­gone clean out of Casey’s life into the unknown whence they had come.

Bill opened the door gently and eased into the office, sniffing liniment.  The painted hollows under Casey’s eyes gave him a ghastly look in the lamp-light when he lifted his face from examining a chafed and angry knee.  Bill opened his mouth for speech, caught a certain look in Casey’s eyes and did not say what he had intended to say.  Instead: 

“You better sleep here in the office, Casey.  I’ve got another bed back of the machine shop.  I’ll lock up, and if any one comes and rings the night bell—­well, never mind.  I’ll plug her so they can’t ring her.”  The world needs more men like Bill.

* * * * *

Even after an avalanche, human nature cannot resist digging in the melancholy hope of turning up grewsome remains.  I know that you are all itching to put shovel into the debris of Casey’s dreams, and to see just what was left of them.