He tried to explain; a thick jargon broke from his lips.
“He’s cock-eyed drunk,” said Van Yeats.
“You look out for him, Van,” said Julius.
“Get him in a doorway, so none of his folks will see him.
I’ll get the car.”
Van Yeats propped him carefully against the wall; Julius Arthur ran swiftly into Church Street, and drew up in a moment at the curb.
Eugene had a vast inclination to slump carelessly upon the nearest support.
He placed his arms around their shoulders and collapsed.
They wedged him between them on the front seat; somewhere bells were ringing.
“Ding-dong!” he said, very cheerfully.
“Cris-muss!”
They answered with a wild yell of laughter.
The house was still empty when they came to it.
They got him out of the car, and staggered up the steps with him.
He was sorry enough that their fellowship was broken.
“Where’s your room, ‘Gene?” said Julius Arthur, panting, as they entered the hall.
“This one’s as good as any,” said Van Yeats.
The door of the front bed-room, opposite the parlor, was open.
They took him in and put him on the bed.
“Let’s take off his shoes,” said Julius Arthur.
They unlaced them and pulled them off.
“Is there anything else you want, son?” said Julius.
He tried to tell them to undress him, put him below the covers, and close the door, in order to conceal his defection from his family, but he had lost the power of speech.
After looking and grinning at him for a moment, they went out without closing the door.
When they had gone he lay upon the bed, unable to move.
He had no sense of time, but his mind worked very clearly.
He knew that he should rise, fasten the door, and undress.
But he was paralyzed.
Presently the Gants came home.
Eliza alone was still in town, pondering over gifts.
It was after eleven o’clock.
Gant, his daughter, and his two sons came into the room and stared at him.
When they spoke to him, he burned helplessly.
“Speak!
Speak!” yelled Luke, rushing at him and choking him vigorously.
“Are you dumb, idiot?”
I shall remember that, he thought.
“Have you no pride?
Have you no honor?
Has it come to this?” the sailor roared dramatically, striding around the room.
Doesn’t he think he’s hell, though? Eugene thought.
He could not fashion words, but he could make sounds, ironically, in the rhythm of his brother’s moralizing.
“Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh!
Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh!
Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh!” he said, with accurate mimicry.
Helen, loosening his collar, bent over him laughing.
Ben grinned swiftly under a cleft scowl.
Have you no this?
Have you no that?
Have you no this?