第53章

"Yes, you will," Adams returned, not noticing that his son's inflection was satiric. "It's going to take every bit of energy in your body, and all the energy I got left in mine, and every cent of the little I've saved, besides something I'll have to raise on this house. I'm going right at it, now I've got to; and you'll have to quit Lamb's by the end of next week.""Oh, I will?" Walter's voice grew louder, and there was a shrillness in it. "I got to quit Lamb's the end of next week, have I?" He stepped forward, angrily. "Listen!" he said. "I'm not walkin' out o' Lamb's, see? I'm not quittin' down there: Istay with 'em, see?"

Adams looked up at him, astonished. "You'll leave there next Saturday," he said. "I've got to have you.""You don't anything o' the kind," Walter told him, sharply. "Do you expect to pay me anything?""I'd pay you about what you been getting down there.""Then pay somebody else; _I_ don't know anything about glue. You get somebody else.""No. You've got to---"

Walter cut him off with the utmost vehemence. "Don't tell me what I got to do! I know what I got to do better'n you, I guess!

I stay at Lamb's, see?"

Adams rose angrily. "You'll do what I tell you. You can't stay down there.""Why can't I?"

"Because I won't let you."

"Listen! Keep on not lettin' me: I'll be there just the same."At that his father broke into a sour laughter. "THEY won't let you, Walter! They won't have you down there after they find out I'm going.""Why won't they? You don't think they're goin' to be all shot to pieces over losin' YOU, do you?""I tell you they won't let you stay," his father insisted, loudly.

"Why, what do they care whether you go or not?""They'll care enough to fire YOU, my boy!""Look here, then; show me why."

"They'll do it!"

"Yes," Walter jeered; "you keep sayin' they will, but when I ask you to show me why, you keep sayin' they will! That makes little headway with ME, I can tell you!"Adams groaned, and, rubbing his head, began to pace the floor.

Walter's refusal was something he had not anticipated; and he felt the weakness of his own attempt to meet it: he seemed powerless to do anything but utter angry words, which, as Walter said, made little headway. "Oh, my, my!" he muttered, "OH, my, my!"Walter, usually sallow, had grown pale: he watched his father narrowly, and now took a sudden resolution. "Look here," he said. "When you say Lamb's is likely to fire me because you're goin' to quit, you talk like the people that have to be locked up. I don't know where you get such things in your head; Lamb and Company won't know you're gone. Listen: I can stay there long as I want to. But I'll tell you what I'll do: make it worth my while and I'll hook up with your old glue factory, after all."Adams stopped his pacing abruptly, and stared at him. "'Make it worth your while?' What you mean?""I got a good use for three hundred dollars right now," Walter said. "Let me have it and I'll quit Lamb's to work for you.

Don't let me have it and I SWEAR I won't!""Are you crazy?"

"Is everybody crazy that needs three hundred dollars?""Yes," Adams said. "They are if they ask ME for it, when I got to stretch every cent I can lay my hands on to make it look like a dollar!""You won't do it?"

Adams burst out at him. "You little fool! If I had three hundred dollars to throw away, besides the pay I expected to give you, haven't you got sense enough to see I could hire a man worth three hundred dollars more to me than you'd be? It's a FINE time to ask me for three hundred dollars, isn't it! What FOR?

Rhinestone buckles to throw around on your 'girl friends?' Shame on you! Ask me to BRIBE you to help yourself and your own family!""I'll give you a last chance," Walter said. "Either you do what I want, or I won't do what you want. Don't ask me again after this, because----"Adams interrupted him fiercely. "'Ask you again!' Don't worry about that, my boy! All I ask you is to get out o' my room.""Look here," Walter said, quietly; and his lopsided smile distorted his livid cheek. "Look here: I expect YOU wouldn't give me three hundred dollars to save my life, would you?""You make me sick," Adams said, in his bitterness. "Get out of here."Walter went out, whistling; and Adams drooped into his old chair again as the door closed. "OH, my, my!" he groaned. "Oh, Lordy, Lordy! The way of the transgressor----"