policeman. When the ambulance clanged
away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him. "Funny what
he says to the little cuss that done the damage. That's all he did call
him--'nothin' else at all--and the cuss had broke both his legs fer him
and God-knows-what-all!"

"I wasn't here then. What was it?"

"Riffraff!"

Chapter XXXV

Eugene's feeling about George had not been altered by his talk with
Kinney in the club window, though he was somewhat disturbed. He was not
disturbed by Kinney's hint that Fanny Minafer might be left on the hands
of her friends through her nephew's present dealings with nitroglycerin,
but he was surprised that Kinney had "led up" with intentional tact to
the suggestion that a position might be made for George in the Morgan
factory. Eugene did not care to have any suggestions about Georgie
Minafer made to him. Kinney had represented Georgie as a new Georgie--at
least in spots--a Georgie who was proving that decent stuff had been
hid in him; in fact, a Georgie who was doing rather a handsome thing
in taking a risky job for the sake of his aunt, poor old silly Fanny
Minafer! Eugene didn't care what risks Georgie took, or how much decent
stuff he had in him: nothing that Georgie would ever do in this world or
the next could change Eugene Morgan's feeling toward him.

If Eugene could possibly have brought himself to offer Georgie a
position in the automobile business, he knew full well the proud devil
wouldn't have taken it from him; though Georgie's proud reason would not
have been the one attributed to him by Eugene. George would never
reach the point where he could accept anything material from Eugene and
preserve the self-respect he had begun to regain.

But if Eugene had wished, he could easily have taken George out of
the nitroglycerin branch of the chemical works. Always interested
in apparent impossibilities of invention, Eugene had encouraged many
experiments in such gropings as those for the discovery of substitutes
for gasoline and rubber; and, though his mood had withheld the
information from Kinney, he had recently bought from the elder Akers a
substantial quantity of stock on the condition that the chemical company
should establish an experimental laboratory. He intended to buy more;
Akers was anxious to please him; and a word from Eugene would have
placed George almost anywhere in the chemical works. George need never
have known it, for Eugene's purchases of