"I won't drop it! He started it. The snivelling codfish."
He went on, in the same strain, endlessly. Don did not speak until he had finished his meal. Then as he rose to get his pipe, he said: "I want you to understand that I'm not going to be a party to any more of this. If you intend to live like a beast, your father shall know of it. I'll not help conceal it any longer. . . . And what's more," he broke out, "I won't live with it myself. I'd as soon live in a bar-room. I can't and I won't! You'll behave yourself or I'll write to Uncle John and get out of here altogether."
"Well, say," Conroy sneered, "we'll miss you, won't we? You can get out of here just as quick as you please. If you don't, I will!"
Don waved his hand excitedly. "That's all right. I'll go. You may roll in the gutter if you like it. You'll not splash me with your mud any more."
Pittsey rose to check him. Don reached his hat and coat. "That's enough now, Bert," he said. "I—I'll move out my things to-morrow morning, I've had enough. It's been impossible for me to live here, ever since he came back. I can't live this way, and I won't."
He went out to the street again, like a poet to solitude. Everyone misjudged him, quarrelled with him, or was disappointed in him. He admitted that the cause, no doubt, was in himself; but he could not change himself. He could not, for example, continue to be a silent spectator of Conroy's downfall and make a joke of it, as Pittsey could. He would write his uncle so, and be done with the whole worry. He would take a
