ok here, boy," said Tough McCarty, filling the air with the
blue smoke, "I'm not a mammy boy nor a goody-goody, and I don't like
preaching; but you've got too much ahead of you, old rooster, to go
and throw it away."

"What do you mean?" said Dink, champing furiously on his cigar, as he
had seen several stage villains do.

"I mean, old socks," said Tough, frowning with his effort--"I mean
there are some fellows here who are worth while and some who are not,
who won't do you any good, who don't amount to a row of pins, and
aren't up to you in any way you look at it."

"Are you criticising my friends?" said Stover, who had just passed an
even more unflattering judgment, due to the Welsh-rabbit episode.

"I am," said McCarty, passing his hand over his forehead with
difficulty.

Stover was just about to make an angry reply when he looked at
McCarty, who suddenly leaned back against the tree. At the same moment
a feeling of insecurity overtook him. He started again to make an
angry answer and then all pugnacious thoughts left him. He sat down
suddenly, his head swam on his shoulders and about him the woods
danced in drunken reelings, sweeping grotesque boughs over him. Only
the earth felt good, the damp, muddy earth, which he all at once
convulsively embraced.

"Dink!"

The sound was far off, weak and fraught with mortal distress.

"Has it hit you, too?"

Dink's answer was a groan. He opened one eye; McCarty, prone at his
side, lay on his stomach, burying his head in his arms.

At this moment a light patter sounded about them.

"It's beginning to rain."

"I don't care!"

"Neither do I."

Stover lay clutching the earth, that somehow wouldn't kept still,
that moved under him, that swayed and rose and fell. Then things began
to rush through his brain: armies of football-clad warriors, The Roman
whirling by on one leg of his chair, Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan
prancing impishly, sticking out his tongue at him, whole flocks of
Sunday preachers gesticulating in his direction, crowds of faces,
legs, arms, an old, yellow dog with a sausage in his mouth----

Suddenly near him McCarty began to move.

"Where are you going?" he managed to say. "For Heaven's sake, don't
leave me."

"To the pond--drink."

McCarty, on his hands and knees, began to crawl. Stover raised himself
up and staggered after. The rain came down unheeded--nothing could add
to his misery. They reached the pond and drank long copious drinks