to be flying about
like a pinwheel and then projecting itself off into
space and his arms and legs flopped helplessly about.

At eleven o'clock Tom got back into town. George
Willard found him wandering about and took him into the
Eagle printshop. Then he became afraid that the drunken
boy would make a mess on the floor and helped him into
the alleyway.

The reporter was confused by Tom Foster. The drunken
boy talked of Helen White and said he had been with her
on the shore of a sea and had made love to her. George
had seen Helen White walking in the street with her
father during the evening and decided that Tom was out
of his head. A sentiment concerning Helen White that
lurked in his own heart flamed up and he became angry.
"Now you quit that," he said. "I won't let Helen
White's name be dragged into this. I won't let that
happen." He began shaking Tom's shoulder, trying to
make him understand. "You quit it," he said again.

For three hours the two young men, thus strangely
thrown together, stayed in the printshop. When he had a
little recovered George took Tom for a walk. They went
into the country and sat on a log near the edge of a
wood. Something in the still night drew them together
and when the drunken boy's head began to clear they
talked.

"It was good to be drunk," Tom Foster said. "It taught
me something. I won't have to do it again. I will think
more dearly after this. You see how it is."

George Willard did not see, but his anger concerning
Helen White passed and he felt drawn toward the pale,
shaken boy as he had never before been drawn toward
anyone. With motherly solicitude, he insisted that Tom
get to his feet and walk about. Again they went back to
the printshop and sat in silence in the darkness.

The reporter could not get the purpose of Tom Foster's
action straightened out in his mind. When Tom spoke
again of Helen White he again grew angry and began to
scold. "You quit that," he said sharply. "You haven't
been with her. What makes you say you have? What makes
you keep saying such things? Now you quit it, do you
hear?"

Tom was hurt. He couldn't quarrel with George Willard
because he was incapable of quarreling, so he got up to
go away. When George Willard was insistent he put out
his hand, laying it on the older boy's arm, and tried
to explain.

"Well," he said softly, "I don't know how it was. I was
happy. You see how that was. Helen White made me happy
and the night did too.