THE STEADFAST HEART
“Jake and me,” stammered Bishwhang, “we come to see you off—didn’t we, Jake?”
Schwartz growled and shuffled his feet. He seemed extraordinarily ill-tempered. Angus’s face grew a trifle more blank than usual. Wilkins’s jaw set and he paced to and fro with short, uneasy, indecisive strides. There fell an awkward silence, the silence of human beings striving to express what was in their hearts—something which uncouth, masculine inhibitions kept imprisoned.
Bishwhang stammered again, “Jake and me—we kinder calc’lated we’d come to see you off.”
“This here kid and me—” blustered Jake, but words failed him; he thrust his hands viciously into his pockets and glared provocatively at the inoffensive ticket seller through his little window.
“It looks kinder—like a nice day fur—fur travelin’,” Bishwhang said, forcing out the words as if he were being strangled.
In desperation Jake plunged an inky hand into his hip pocket and extracted a much be-fingered, thumb-marked packet. The knots would not yield to his clumsy touch, and he jerked off strings and wrapper violently.
“Bishwhang—him—” He pointed out the printer’s devil as if Bishwhang were a strange individual, never seen before by Angus. “Him
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