had myself on the streets; I was just going to test his
ginger; I wasn't counting on the robbing, and the alleys, and the
knockout, and the morgue. Gee, Peter!"
Then they laughed. A dull red surged up Junior's neck, and flooded his
face. He picked up the bundle, went silently from the barn, and climbed on
the wagon. The jerk of the horse stopping at its accustomed place told him
when to load the first can. He had been thinking so deeply he was utterly
oblivious to everything save the thought that it had been prearranged
among them to "cure" him; even his mother knew about, if he heard aright,
had been the instigator of the scheme to let him go, to be what Mickey
called "initiated in the ancient and honourable third degree of
Multiopolis."
Once he felt so outraged he thought of starting the horse home, taking the
trolley, going back to Multiopolis and fighting his way to what his father
would be compelled to acknowledge success. He knew that he could do it; he
was on the point of vowing that he _would_ do it; but in his heart he knew
better than any one else how repulsed he was, how he hated it, and against
a vision of weary years of fighting, came that other vision of himself
planning and working beside his father to change and improve their home
life.
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