Tales of the Jazz Age - The Original Classic Edition. Fitzgerald F

with his eyes shut.

       They left Rivers' at five-thirty and parsed for a moment on the sidewalk.

       "Well," said Dean genially, "I'm all set now. Think I'll go back to the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and massage." "Good enough," said the other man, "I think I'll join you."

       Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after all. With difficulty he restrained himself from turning to the man and snarling out, "Go on away, damn you!" In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dispute about the money.

       They went into the Biltmore--a Biltmore alive with girls--mostly from the West and South, the stellar debutantes of many cities gathered for the dance of a famous fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his forces for a last appeal, was about to come out with he knew not what, when Dean suddenly excused himself to the other man and taking Gordon's arm led him aside.

       "Gordy," he said quickly, "I've thought the whole thing over carefully and I've decided that I can't lend you that money. I'd like to

       oblige you, but I don't feel I ought to--it'd put a crimp in me for a month."

       Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had never before noticed how much those upper teeth projected.

       "I'm--mighty sorry, Gordon," continued Dean, "but that's the way it is."

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       He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out seventy-five dollars in bills.

       "Here," he said, holding them out, "here's seventy-five; that makes eighty all together. That's all the actual cash I have with me,

       besides what I'll actually spend on the trip."

       Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically, opened it as though it were a tongs he was holding, and clenched it again on the money.

       "I'll see you at the dance," continued Dean. "I've got to get along to the barber shop."

       "So-long," said Gordon in a strained and husky voice.

       "So-long."

       Dean, began to smile, but seemed to change his mind. He nodded briskly and disappeared.

       But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry with distress, the roll of bills clenched tightly in his hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears, he stumbled clumsily down the Biltmore steps.

       III

       About nine o'clock of the same night two human beings came out of a cheap restaurant in Sixth Avenue. They were ugly, ill-nourished, devoid of all except the very lowest form of intelligence, and without even that animal exuberance that in itself brings color into life; they were lately vermin-ridden, cold, and hungry in a dirty town of a strange land; they were poor, friendless; tossed as driftwood from their births, they would be tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They were dressed in the uniform of the United States Army, and on the shoulder of each was the insignia of a drafted division from New Jersey, landed three days before.

       The taller of the two was named Carrol Key, a name hinting that in his veins, however thinly diluted by generations of degeneration, ran blood of some potentiality. But one could stare endlessly at the long, chinless face, the dull, watery eyes, and high cheek-bones, without finding suggestion of either ancestral worth or native resourcefulness.

       His companion was swart and bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. His name was Gus Rose.

       Leaving the cafe they sauntered down Sixth Avenue, wielding toothpicks with great gusto and complete detachment. "Where to?" asked Rose, in a tone which implied that he would not be surprised if Key suggested the South Sea Islands.

       "What you say we see if we can getta holda some liquor?" Prohibition was not yet. The ginger in the suggestion was caused by the law forbidding the selling of liquor to soldiers.

       Rose agreed enthusiastically.

       "I got an idea," continued Key, after a moment's thought, "I got a brother somewhere."

       "In New York?"