Old Ben.”
She swayed gently, vaguely collecting her thought.
“Old Ben.
How’s Old Ben, ‘Gene?” she coaxed.
“Fatty wants to know.”
“I’m m-m-m-mighty sorry, Mrs. P-P-P-Pert . . .” Luke began.
Wind pressed the boughs, the withered leaves were quaking.
“Ben’s dead,” said Eugene.
She stared at him for a moment, swaying on her feet
“Fatty liked Ben,” she said gently, in a moment.
“Fatty and Old Ben were friends.”
She turned and started unsteadily across the street, holding one hand out gravely, for balance.
In that enormous silence, birds were waking.
It was October, but some birds were waking.
Then Luke and Eugene walked swiftly townward, filled with great joy because they heard the sounds of life and daybreak.
And as they walked, they spoke often of Ben, with laughter, with old pleasant memory, speaking of him not as of one who had died, but as of a brother who had been gone for years, and was returning home.
They spoke of him with triumph and tenderness, as of one who had defeated pain, and had joyously escaped.
Eugene’s mind groped awkwardly about.
It fumbled like a child, with little things.
They were filled with a deep and tranquil affection for each other: they talked without constraint, without affectation, with quiet confidence and knowledge.
“Do you remember,” Luke began, “the t-t-t-time he cut the hair of Aunt Pett’s orphan boy — Marcus?”
“He — used — a chamber-pot — to trim the edges,” Eugene screamed, waking the street with wild laughter.
They walked along hilariously, greeting a few early pedestrians with ironical obsequiousness, jeering pleasantly at the world in brotherly alliance.
Then they entered the relaxed and weary offices of the paper which Ben had served so many years, and gave their stick of news to the tired man there.
There was regret, a sense of wonder, in that office where the swift record of so many days had died — a memory that would not die, of something strange and passing.
“Damn!
I’m sorry!
He was a great boy!” said the men.
As light broke grayly in the empty streets, and the first car rattled up to town, they entered the little beanery where he had spent, in smoke and coffee, so many hours of daybreak.
Eugene looked in and saw them there, assembled as they had been many years before, like the nightmare ratification of a prophecy: McGuire, Coker, the weary counter-man, and, at the lower end, the press-man, Harry Tugman.
Luke and Eugene entered, and sat down at the counter.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Luke sonorously.
“Hello, Luke,” barked McGuire.
“Do you think you’ll ever have any sense?
How are you, son?
How’s school?” he said to Eugene. He stared at them for a moment, his wet cigarette plastered comically on his full sag lip, his bleared eyes kindly and drunken.
“General, how’s the boy?
What’re you drinking these days — turpentine or varnish?” said the sailor, tweaking him roughly in his larded ribs. McGuire grunted.
“Is it over, son?” said Coker quietly.
“Yes,” said Eugene.
Coker took the long cigar from his mouth and grinned malarially at the boy.
“Feel better, don’t you, son?” he said.
“Yes,” said Eugene. “A hell of a lot.”
“Well, Eugenics,” said the sailor briskly, “what are you eating?”
“What’s the man got?” said Eugene, staring at the greasy card.
“Have you got any young roast whale left?”
“No,” said the counter-man. “We did have some, but we run out.”
“How about the fricasseed bull?” said Luke.
“Have you got any of that?”
“You don’t need any one to fricassee your bull, son,” said McGuire. “You’ve got plenty as it is.”