"It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the food you eat.Your position? Any other man would have been shown the door a year ago--two years ago.I have held you in it.Your salary has been charity.It has been paid out of my pocket.Mary...her dresses...
that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of her sisters, of my wife.Charity--do you understand? Your children--they are wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum.And it is an orphan asylum...or it soon will be."He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip on the shoulder.Al was squirming with the pain of it.The sweat was starting out on his forehead.
"Now listen well to me," his brother went on."In three minutes you will tell me that you are going with me.If you don't, Mary and the children will be taken away from you--to-day.You needn't ever come to the office.
This house will be closed to you.And in six months I shall have the pleasure of burying you.You have three minutes to make up your mind."Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the clutching hand.
"My heart...let me go...you'll be the death of me," he gasped.
The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released him.
The clock on the mantle ticked loudly.George glanced at it, and at Mary.
She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her trembling.He became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's fingers on his hand.Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand upon his coat.
The clock ticked on in the silence.It seemed to George that the room reverberated with his voice.He could hear himself still speaking.
"I'll go," came from the Morris chair.
It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that pulled himself out of the Morris chair.He started toward the door.
"Where are you going?" George demanded.
"Suit case," came the response."Mary'll send the trunk later.I'll be back in a minute."The door closed after him.A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion, George was opening the door.He glanced in.His brother stood at a sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to his lips, a whisky glass.
Across the glass Al saw that he was observed.It threw him into a panic.
Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass and decanter were sent smashing to the floor.He snarled.It was like the sound of a wild beast.But the grip on his shoulder subdued and frightened him.He was being propelled toward the door.
"The suit case," he gasped."It's there in that room.Let me get it.""Where's the key?" his brother asked, when he had brought it.
"It isn't locked."
The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was searching the contents.From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky, from the other side a flask.He snapped the case to.
"Come on," he said."If we miss one car, we miss that train."He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife.It was like a funeral, George thought, as he waited.
His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed its closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears.George's lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps.In one hand he carried the suit case.With the other hand he held his brother's arm.
As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away, and urged his brother on.Al was breathing hard.His feet dragged and shuffled, and he held back.
"A hell of a brother YOU are," he panted.
For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm.It reminded him of his childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up.And like a child, he had to be helped up the car step.He sank down on an outside seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion.He followed George's eyes as the latter looked him up and down.
"A hell of a brother YOU are," was George's comment when he had finished the inspection.
Moisture welled into Al's eyes.
"It's my stomach," he said with self-pity.
"I don't wonder," was the retort."Burnt out like the crater of a volcano.
Fervent heat isn't a circumstance."
Thereafter they did not speak.When they arrived at the transfer point, George came to himself with a start.He smiled.With fixed gaze that did not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had himself been sunk deep in self-pity.He helped his brother from the car, and looked up the intersecting street.The car they were to take was not in sight.
Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way.At once he became restless.His hands passed beyond his control, and he yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as he looked and let in a happy pilgrim.And in that instant he saw the white-jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass.Quite unconsciously he started to cross the street.
"Hold on." George's hand was on his arm.
"I want some whisky," he answered.
"You've already had some."
"That was hours ago.Go on, George, let me have some.It's the last day.
Don't shut off on me until we get there--God knows it will be soon enough."George glanced desperately up the street.The car was in sight.
"There isn't time for a drink," he said.
"I don't want a drink.I want a bottle." Al's voice became wheedling.
"Go on, George.It's the last, the very last.""No." The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it.
Al glanced at the approaching car.He sat down suddenly on the curbstone.
"What's the matter?" his brother asked, with momentary alarm.
"Nothing.I want some whisky.It's my stomach.""Come on now, get up."
George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled flat on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances of the passers-by.The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a block away.
