“Come here a minute, boy,” she said.
He went into the hall.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Why, son, what in the world! I don’t know. You’ll have to do something,” she whispered, twisting her hands together.
“What is it, mama? What are you talking about?” he cried irritably.
“Why—Jannadeau’s just called up. Your papa’s on a rampage again and he’s coming this way. Child! There’s no telling what he’ll do. I’ve all these people in the house. He’ll ruin us.” She wept. “Go and try to stop him. Head him off if you can. Take him to Woodson Street.”
He got his hat quickly and ran through the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Laura James. “Are you going off without supper?”
“I’ve got to go to town,” he said. “I won’t be long. Will you wait for me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He leaped down on the walk just as his father lurched in from the street by the high obscuring hedge that shut the house from the spacious yard of the attorney Hall. Gant reeled destructively, across a border of lilies, on to the lawn, and strode for the veranda. He stumbled, cursing, on the bottom step and plunged forward in a sprawl upon the porch. The boy jumped for him, and half dragged, half lifted his great drunken body erect. The boarders shrank into a huddle with a quick scattering of chairs: he greeted them with a laugh of howling contempt.
“Are you there? I say, are you there? The lowest of the low— boarding-house swine! Merciful God! What a travesty! A travesty on Nature! That it should come to this!”
He burst into a long peal of maniacal laughter.
“Papa! Come on!” said Eugene in a low voice. He took his father cautiously by the sleeve. Gant flung him half across the porch with a gesture of his hand. As he stepped in again swiftly, his father struck at him with a flailing arm. He evaded the great mowing fist without trouble, and caught the falling body, swung from its own pivot, in his arms. Then quickly, before Gant could recover, holding him from behind, he rushed him toward the door. The boarders scattered away like sparrows. But
