"Cæsar's ghost!" he cried. "The three of us. Let's eat on it. Come on. It's my treat. Come on. Have a feed on me at Durkin's." Conroy was staring at his cousin over the pipe which he held, forgotten, at his lips. Eh, Mac?" Pittsey prodded him.
Don smiled tremulously at Conroy, and said, "I—I'm hungry enough."
"Come on, then!"
XII
They went; and they made their plans together over beefsteak and potatoes, as daringly as three musketeers of romance conspiring to overturn a dynasty with their rapiers. They returned through the quiet streets in a line abreast, all keyed up to Pittsey's high spirits, swaggering and talking as freely as if they were irresponsible young tourists in a foreign land—as indeed they seemed to Don, when he looked around at the shops and the houses that watched him with such an alien impassiveness as he paraded by. Pittsey left them at Mrs. Stewart's door, and went off whistling martially; but his spirit presided over the flushed council which Don and Conroy kept in session until two o'clock on Sunday morning, perfecting their plans in detail, counting their money and encouraging their hopes.
In pursuance of those plans, Don the next day wrote to his mother that, after all, his father had been right; that he felt he would be better at work; that Conroy—as she would probably hear from the McLeans—
