realized the conditions; but it's gone on for
a month; and, instead of getting tired, you're getting more and more
into the loafing habit. You abuse time till it shrieks in agony."

"Good sentence," applauded Laurie. "But don't waste it on me. Put it
into a play."

Bangs seemed not to hear him. He was standing by the room's one window,
now, staring unseeingly out of it, his hands deep in his pockets, taking
in the knowledge of the failure of his appeal. Under the realization of
this he tossed a final taunt at his partner over his shoulder.

"I can forgive the big blunders a man makes in his life," he muttered;
"but, by God, I haven't much patience with a chap that lies around and
shirks at a time like this!"

Laurie removed the half-smoked cigarette from his mouth, and not finding
an ash tray within reach, carefully crushed out its burning end against
the polished top of the dressing-case. He had grown rather pale.

"That will be about all, Bangs," he said quietly. "What you and Epstein
and Haxon don't seem to remember is just one thing. If you don't like
matters as they are, it's mighty easy to change them. It doesn't take
half a minute to agree to dissolve a partnership."

"I know." Bangs returned to his chair, and, dropping limply into it, his
hands still in his pockets, stared despondently at his outstretched
legs. "That's all it means to you," he went on, morosely. "Our
partnership is one in a thousand. It's based on friendship as well as on
financial interest. If I do say it, it represents a combination of
brains, ability, backing, and prospects that comes only once in a
lifetime, if it comes at all. Yet in one year you're sick of it, and
tired of work. You're ready to throw it all over, and to throw over at
the same time the men whose interests are bound up with yours. You're
dawdling in cabarets and roadhouses and restaurants, when you might be
doing Work--" Bangs's voice capitalized the word--"real work," he added
fiercely, "work other fellows would give their souls to be able to do."

He ended on a flat note, oddly unlike his usual buoyant tones, and sat
still as if everything had been said.

Laurie lit a fresh cigarette, drew in a mouthful of smoke, and exhaled
it in a series of pretty rings. In his brief college experience he had
devoted some time to acquiring this art. Admiringly watching the little
rings pass through the big rings, he spoke with studied carelessness.

"It was a pretty good scene,