as they walked, they spoke often of Ben, with laughter, with old pleasant memory, speaking of him not as of one who had died, but as of a brother who had been gone for years, and was returning home. They spoke of him with triumph and tenderness, as of one who had defeated pain, and had joyously escaped. Eugene’s mind groped awkwardly about. It fumbled like a child, with little things.
They were filled with a deep and tranquil affection for each other: they talked without constraint, without affectation, with quiet confidence and knowledge.
“Do you remember,” Luke began, “the t-t-t-time he cut the hair of Aunt Pett’s orphan boy—Marcus?”
“He—used—a chamber-pot—to trim the edges,” Eugene screamed, waking the street with wild laughter.
They walked along hilariously, greeting a few early pedestrians with ironical obsequiousness, jeering pleasantly at the world in brotherly alliance. Then they entered the relaxed and weary offices of the paper which Ben had served so many years, and gave their stick of news to the tired man there.
There was regret, a sense of wonder, in that office where the swift record of so many days had died—a memory that would not die, of something strange and passing.
“Damn! I’m sorry! He was a great boy!” said the men.
As light broke grayly in the empty streets, and the first car rattled up to town, they entered the little beanery where he had spent, in smoke and coffee, so many hours of daybreak.
Eugene looked in and saw them there, assembled as they had been many years before, like the nightmare ratification of a prophecy: McGuire, Coker, the weary counter-man, and, at the lower end, the press-man, Harry Tugman.
Luke and Eugene entered, and sat down at the counter.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Luke sonorously.
“Hello, Luke,” barked McGuire. “Do you think you’ll ever have any sense? How are you, son? How’s school?” he said to Eugene. He stared at them for a moment, his wet cigarette plastered comically on his full sag lip, his bleared eyes kindly and drunken.
“General, how’s the boy? What’re you drinking these days— turpentine
