his lip, he came; unwillingly,
swearing under his breath, he came. We tramped up and down the garden
paths, up and down, and back again, his wooden peg making a round
hole, like a hoofmark, in the earth. He stared down at it, spat
savagely upon it, and swore horribly, but not too loudly.

"I want to feel like a live man!" he gritted. "A live man, not a
one-legged mucker with a beard like a Dutch bomb-thrower's, puttering
about a skypilot's backyard on the wrong side of everything!"

"Stick it out a little longer, John Flint; hold fast!"

"Hold fast to what?" he demanded savagely. "To a bug stuck on a
needle?"

"Yes. And to me who trusts you. To Madame who likes you. To the dear
child who put bug and needle into your hand because she knew it was
good work and trusted your hand to do it. And more than all, to that
other Me you're finding--your own true self, John Flint! Hold fast,
hold fast!"

He stopped and stared at me.

"I'm believing him again!" said he, grievously. "I've been sat on
while I was hot, and my number's marked on me, 23. I'm hoodooed,
that's what!"

Tramp, tramp, stump, stump, up and down, the two of us.

"All right, devil-dodger," said he wearily, after a long sullen
silence. "I'll stick it out a bit longer, to please you. You've been
white--the lot of you. But look here--if I beat it some night ... with
what I can find, why, I'm warning you: don't blame _me_--you're
running your risks, and it'll be up to _you_ to explain!"

"When you want to go, John Flint--when you really and truly want to
go, why, take anything I have that you may fancy, my son. I give it
you beforehand."

"I don't want anything given to me beforehand!" he growled. "I want to
take what I want to take without anybody's leave!"

"Very well, then; take what you want to take, without anybody's leave!
I shall be able to do without it, I dare say."

He turned upon me furiously:

"Oh, yes, I guess you can! You'd do without eating and breathing too,
I suppose, if you could manage it! You do without too blamed much
right now, trying to beat yourself to being a saint! Of course I'd
help myself and leave you to go without--you're enough to make a man
ache to shoot some sense into you with a cannon! And for God's sake,
_who_ are you pinching and scraping and going without _for_? A bunch
of hickey factory-shuckers that haven't got sense enough to talk
American, and a lot of mill-hands with beans on 'em like bone buttons!
They ain