They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them.

Jo stood, shaking, in the centre of the room. Then he reached for a
chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand over
his forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still. It
sounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think he
did not even hear it with his conscious ear. But it rang and rang
insistently. Jo liked to answer his telephone, when at home.

"Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end.

"That you, Jo?" it said.

"Yes."

"How's my boy?"

"I'm--all right."

"Listen, Jo. The crowd's coming over to-night. I've fixed up a little
poker game for you. Just eight of us."

"I can't come to-night, Gert."

"Can't! Why not?"

"I'm not feeling so good."

"You just said you were all right."

"I _am_ all right. Just kind of tired."

The voice took on a cooing note. "Is my Joey tired? Then he shall be all
comfy on the sofa, and he doesn't need to play if he don't want to. No,
sir."

Jo stood staring at the black mouth-piece of the telephone. He was
seeing a procession go marching by. Boys, hundreds of boys, in khaki.

"Hello! Hello!" the voice took on an anxious note. "Are you there?"

"Yes," wearily.

"Jo, there's something the matter. You're sick. I'm coming right over."

"No!"

"Why not? You sound as if you'd been sleeping. Look here--"

"Leave me alone!" cried Jo, suddenly, and the receiver clacked onto the
hook. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone." Long after the connection had
been broken.

He stood staring at the instrument with unseeing eyes. Then he turned
and walked into the front room. All the light had gone out of it. Dusk
had come on. All the light had gone out of everything. The zest had gone
out of life. The game was over--the game he had been playing against
loneliness and disappointment. And he was just a tired old man. A
lonely, tired old man in a ridiculous, rose-coloured room that had
grown, all of a sudden, drab.

III

THE TOUGH GUY

You could not be so very tough in Chippewa, Wisconsin. But Buzz Werner
managed magnificently with the limited means at hand. Before he was
nineteen mothers were warning their sons against him, and brothers their
sisters. Buzz Werner not only was tough--he looked tough. When he
spoke--which was often--his speech slid sinisterly out of the extreme
left corner of his mouth. He had a trick of hitching himself up from the
bel