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DON-A-DREAMS

their surprised greetings. "Why, what happened?" Don cried. He answered brutally: "I don't know that it's any of your business." He continued eating in a surly indifference to them, as if they were a pair of intruders. They stood awkwardly, staring at him, until Walter Pittsey, with a shrug of the shoulder, turned into the other room. Don heard him talking in low tones to his brother, who was already in bed. There were only three beds—three cots—so narrow that it was impossible for more than one person to sleep in any one of them.

"You might have let us known that you were coming," Don said.

"I don't have to report my movements to you. I'm done with you. You mind your own affairs and I'll mind mine."

Don sat down, sick at heart. Conroy finished his supper and shoved back his chair. He swayed and stumbled as he crossed to the bedroom door. He threw it open with his foot, and went in to his cot—the cot in which Walter Pittsey had been sleeping. He sat down on the side of it and began to take off his shoes.

Walter came out. "Well," he said, as he shut the door behind him, "this is no place for me."

"No," Don replied, "nor for me either. I might as well get out now. I can't live here—not with this sort of thing."

"Nonsense! He'll be all right in the morning. He'll sleep it off."

"No. . . . No. . . . He thinks I—— It's no use. You know what I did. I did it because I had to—but