mins the night you skipped out and you
says: 'Dan, Dan, my only friend, tried and true, I'm broke.' Just like
that you says it. And Dan says, without waitin' for you to ask; he says:
'Billy, you and me have been pals for fifteen years; pals man and boy. A
friend is a friend, and a man who's broke don't want sympathy--he needs
money. Here's three thousand dollars--all I've got. I was going to buy
a home for the old mother, but friendship in need comes before all. It's
yours. Take it. Don't say a word. Crimmins has a heart, and it's Dan
Crimmins' way. He may suffer for it, but it's his way.' That's what he
says."

"Go on," whispered Garrison. His eyes were very wide and vacant.

Crimmins spat carefully, as if to stimulate his imagination.

"No, no, you don't remember," he mused sadly. "Now you're tooting along
with the high rollers. But I ain't kickin'. It's Crimmins' way never to
give his hand in the dark, but when he does give it--for life, my boy,
for life. But I was thinkin' of the wife and kids you left up in Long
Island; left to face the music. Of course I stood their friend as best I
could--"

"Then--I'm married?" asked Garrison slowly. He laughed--a laugh that
caused the righteous Crimmins to wince. The latter carefully wiped his
eyes with a handkerchief that had once been white.

"Boy, boy!" he said, in great agony of mind. "To think you've gone and
forgot the sacred bond of matrimony! I thought at least you would have
remembered that. But I says to your wife, I says: 'Billy will come back.
He ain't the kind to leave you an' the kids go to the poorhouse, all for
the want of a little gumption. He'll come back and face the charges--"

"What charges?" Garrison did not recognize his own voice.

"Why, poisoning Sis. It's a jail offense," exclaimed Crimmins.

"Indeed," commented Garrison.

Again he laughed and again the righteous Crimmins winced. Garrison's
gray eyes had the glint of sun shining on ice. His mouth looked as it
had many a time when he fought neck-and-neck down the stretch, snatching
victory by sheer, condensed, bulldog grit. Crimmins knew of old what
that mouth portended, and he spoke hurriedly.

"Don't do anything rash, Bud. Bygones is bygones, and, as the Bible
says: 'Circumstances alters cases,' and--"

"Then this is how I stand," cut in Garrison steadily, unheeding the
advice. He counted the dishonorable tally on his fingers. "I'm a
horse-poisoner, a thief, a welcher. I've deserted my wif