"Who are these fellows?"
"Oh—some fellows I know. Not at school. I—just got in with them." He must not implicate George. "We practised after school."
"Where did you play?"
"In restaurants. Cheap ones. For dances."
"That's what you were up to when you were spending the night with George's aunt, eh? Was George into this?"
"No, no. I just happened to meet these fellows"
"They must be a pretty lot. Who are they?"
"You wouldn't know if I told you. One of them is named Lilly, and another Burns, and another Meech."
"But who are they? Who are their people?"
"How much did you get for playing?" put in Piers.
This question came as a relief. He raised his haggard eyes to Piers. "Five dollars a night."
"And how often have you played?"
"I don't—I can't remember—but we've been going out for over two months."
"What I want to know," insisted Renny, "is who these boys are. Are they students?"
"No. They work. Lilly's grandfather has a greenhouse. Sinden Meech is in some sort of tailoring establishment. Burns is in some kind of—abattoir."
"H'm. . . . And so you're in the habit of knocking about town all night drinking, eh?"
Oh, if they wouldn't stare at him so! He could not get his thoughts clear with those relentless eyes on him!
"No, no," he mumbled, wringing his fingers together. "This is the very first time. . . . We'd been playing for a dance. We got awfully tired. And they gave us something to buck us up. But not too much, mind you. It was at the other place where we went afterward that they—someone—gave us another drink. I guess it was pretty rotten stuff, and when we came out in the street we—couldn't find our way at first—and we separated and got together again and then I took the train for home."
Renny rapped his pipe on the window-sill and put it
