I've always done the square thing by you.
Didn't I pay up everything I owed you by--"
"Are you going to leave that window?" demanded Grand.
The miserable wretch looked into the deadly eyes of the man inside,
and realized. A great sob arose in his throat. He held it back for a
moment, but it grew and grew as he saw no pity in the steely eyes
beyond.
"My soul!" he groaned, with the bursting of the sob. He withdrew his
ghastly face and rushed away in the night, stumbling over ropes and
pegs, creating no end of havoc among the men who happened to toil in
his path. They ran from him, thinking him mad.
Half an hour later Ernie Cronk came upon him. He was sitting on the
curb across the street from the circus lot, his elbows on his knees,
his chin in his hands--staring, staring through dry, hot eyes at the
tented city that was slipping away from him.
"What's the matter?" asked the hunchback, in his high, querulous
voice.
The older man did not respond. He did not alter his position when the
questioner spoke to him.
"What are you looking at?" asked the other.
"Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's
crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a
second.
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