his strange son frightened him. He tried to jest, in a wild effort to drive away that sense of depression.
"Well, here I am," he said brightly. "Back again like a bad penny." Philip didn't answer him, and he said, "I just ran in to say I'm going home day after to-morrow."
"Home?" asked Philip, with a look of bewilderment.
"Yes . . . home to Australy."
"Oh." Then the boy pulled himself together with an effort. "But I thought this was your home."
"No . . . not really. You see, I've lived out there most of my life. And this darned Town has changed so, it don't seem the same any longer. It's all full of new people . . . and foreigners. Most of 'em have never heard of me."
"What'll Ma think?"
"I don't know. I haven't told her, but she knows I had to go back some day. She'll think I'm comin' back. She'll have that to look forward to."
"You're not coming back . . . ever?"
"It ain't likely. They say an animal wants to go home when he's dying. Well, that's me. I want to go home."
"But you're not dying."
"No, but I ain't as young as I once was. I don't want there to be no mistake." He appeared to grow even more dejected. "If I'm out there, I'll know where I am. It's no place for a man like me here in this Town. Why, there ain't room to breathe any more." He took a cigar out of his yellow waistcoat pocket and offered it to Philip, who refused it instinctively, and then accepted it, moved by the pathetic effort at friendliness. The little man wanted to tell him something;
