Kenny wrung his hand in silence.  He motored home, oppressed by the bare line of hills and the noise of the quarry.

As usual the sight of Joan dispelled his gloom.  Brian’s pain was less.  He had fallen asleep of his own accord.

“He asked for you,” she added.

“You told him Frank wouldn’t let me in?”

“Yes.”

“Hum. . . .  Where’s Don?”

“I sent him to the store.”

Kenny darted away with an air of expectancy to the other shack, whence, after an excited period of foraging, he emerged, carrying a bundle.  Frank, knowing him well enough to read his shining enthusiasm aright, would have turned him back at Brian’s door without a qualm.  But Frank was not at hand.

“You look like a kid sneaking home with a stray cat!” Brian told him with a grin.

“What’s in the bundle?”

“I’ve tried so many times to get in,” admitted Kenny, “with Frank nippin’ me just as my hand was on the knob, that I’m feelin’ a bit surreptitious.”  He held up a tennis racket and a shotgun.

“And everything else,” he boasted with an air of triumph, “that I took to Simon.”

“And the bill-file!” exclaimed Brian, staring at the litter on the floor.  “Jemima!”

“You remember it, Brian?  You hated the sight of it.  ’Tis the stiletto I stuck in a chunk of wax—­”

“Lord, yes!  And you wrote the I.O.U.’s on anything from a playing card to the end of a shirt.”

“And never paid ’em until I had to,” said Kenny with an unyielding air of self-contempt.  “Many the time you checked ’em off, Brian, and rebuked me as you should.  But that, by the Blessed Bell of Clare, is all behind me.”

He proudly exhibited the bizarre collection of scraps, initialed in token of debt and reinitialed in token of payment.

“Brian—­I—­I—­”

“Go ahead, old boy,” said Brian, his eyes tender.  “I can see you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“I paid ’em—­every one!”

“So I see.”

“And never again will you have to bookkeep lies.  I’m that truthful now Sid worries a bit!”

Brian’s amazed eyes twinkled.

“You delicious lunatic!” he said.

“I practiced,” went on Kenny with his lips compressed.  “I practiced hard—­up at the farm with Adam.”

“Joan’s told me you were there.  I can’t quite hitch things together yet, but I will in time.”

“A landslide of things seemed to happen the minute you went—­”

“I always had a feeling,” admitted Brian, “that if I didn’t stick around and keep an eye on you, a lot of things would happen.”

“They did.  They’ve been happenin’ ever since.”

Brian flushed and put out his hand.

“Kenny, surely you guessed.  I was sorry—­”

“Jewel machree, I was fair sick about the shotgun.  And after you went I was willing to be sorry about anything—­to get you back.”