"Don't do it, then!"
"Well, perhaps I would, if I could. I don't know . . . I can't, anyway."
"Have you found anything better?"
Don shook his head. "What's Con doing? Does he ever tell you?"
Pittsey made a significant movement of his hand to his lips, throwing back his head.
Don whispered, aghast: "Drinking?"
Pittsey nodded, with a tolerant smile for Don's blindness. "Don't tell him I told you. He's lost his nerve."
It was late that evening. Pittsey had gone to gather material for an article on "Amateur's Night" in a Bowery theatre. Conroy had been sitting beside the dining-table for hours, smoking sourly, his feet on a chair before him and his eyes fixed on the toes of his shoes. Don had been preparing to speak to him, covering his irresolution by pretending to write a letter while he was trying to make up his mind how to begin.
He had asked: "Found anything to do, Con?" Conroy had grunted: "Not a d thing." And there was no more to be said of that matter.
Ten minutes later, he had asked: "Heard anything from home?" And Conroy had answered, in the same tone as before: "Not a d word."
Don scratched perfunctorily at the letter—which, he knew, he would have to destroy. "Have you written to them?" he asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
