“He drinks every time he gets out of work and gets clean discouraged,” retorted the man.

“Well,” said the boy, “you know me well enough to know that I’m with my class every time, but hanged if I can see why your wife’s brother ’ain’t got into a circle that there’s no getting him out of.  We’ve got to get out of work sometimes.  We all know it.  We’ve got to if we don’t want humps on all our shoulders; and if Jim can’t live up to his independence, why, he’s out of the running, or, rather, in his own running so neither God nor man can get him out of it.  You know the time that last strike was on he was in the gutter every day, when he could beg enough money to keep him there.  Now, we can’t have that sort of thing.  When a man’s got so he can’t work nor fight neither, why, he’s up against it.  If Henry here gave up his job, Jim couldn’t get it, and you know it.”

Henry went on.  He hardly heard now what they were saying.  His mind was revelling in its free flights of rebellion against everything.  Henry, for a man who kept the commandments, was again as wicked as he could be, and revelling in his wickedness.  He was like a drinker returned to his cups.  His joy was immense, but unholy.  However, the accusation that he was taking bread from another man who needed it more than he still rankled.  He could, after all, rise somewhat above mere greed.  He resolved that he would give, and no one should know of his giving, to the family of the man Jim who had no work.

During the morning Henry did not trouble himself about Sylvia and what she would think about it all.  Towards noon, however, he began to dread going home and facing her.  When he started he felt fairly cowardly.  He stopped at the drug store and bought a pound of peppermints.

Albion Bennet waited on him.  Albion Bennet was an intensely black-haired man in his forties.  His black hair was always sleek with a patent hair-oil which he carried in his stock.  He always wore a red tie and an old-fashioned scarf-pin set with a tiny diamond, and his collars were made of celluloid.

“I have gone back to the hotel to board,” he informed Henry, while tying up the parcel.  He colored a little under his black, bristling cheeks as he spoke.

“I thought you left,” said Henry.

“So I did.  I went to board at the Joneses’, but—­I can’t stand a girl right in my face and eyes all the time.  When I want to get married, and see the right one, then I want to do the courting; but hang it if I can stand being courted, and that’s what I’ve been up against ever since I left the hotel, and that’s a fact.  Susy Jones was enough, but when it came to Fanny Elliot getting thick with her, and both of them on hand, it was too much.  But I stuck it out till Susy began to do the cooking and her mother made me eat it.”

“I have heard Miss Hart wasn’t a very good cook,” said Henry.