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“No.” The denial was as final as George’s thin lips could make it.

Al glanced at the approaching car. He sat down suddenly on the curbstone.

“What’s the matter?” his brother asked, with momentary alarm.

“Nothing. I want some whisky. It’s my stomach.”

“Come on now, get up.”

George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled flat on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances of the passers-by. The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a block away.

“You’ll miss it,” Al grinned from the pavement. “And it will be your fault.”

George’s fists clenched tightly.

“For two cents I’d give you a thrashing.”

“And miss the car,” was the triumphant comment from the pavement.

George looked at the car. It was halfway down the block. He looked at his watch. He debated a second longer.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll get it. But you get on that car. If you miss it, I’ll break the bottle over your head.”

He dashed across the street and into the saloon. The car came in and stopped. There were no passengers to get off. Al dragged himself up the steps and sat down. He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car started. The swinging door of the saloon burst open. Clutching in his hand the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in pursuit. The conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it would be necessary to stop. It was not. George swung lightly aboard, sat down beside his brother, and passed him the bottle.

“You might have got a quart,” Al said reproachfully.

He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle.

“I’m sick… my stomach,” he explained in apologetic tones to the passenger who sat next to him.

In the train they sat in the smoking-car. George felt that it was imperative. Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart softened. He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of unnecessary harshness. He strove to atone by talking about their mother, and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family. But Al was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle. As the time passed, his mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to puff out and all his facial muscles to relax.

“It’s my stomach,” he said, once, when he finished the bottle and dropped it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother’s face did not encourage further explanations.

The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and luxuriousness of a private carriage. George’s eyes were keen for the ear marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions were allayed from moment to moment. As they entered the wide gateway and rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the institutional side of the place would not jar upon his brother. It was more like a summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club. And as they swept on through the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears, and in his nostrils the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week of rest in such a place, and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of summer in town and at the office. There was not room in his income for his brother and himself.

“Let us take a walk in the grounds,” he suggested, after they had met Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al. “The carriage leaves for the station in half an hour, and we’ll just have time.”

“It’s beautiful,” he remarked a moment later. Under his feet was the velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled sunshine. “I wish I could stay for a month.”

“I’ll trade places with you,” Al said quickly.

George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart.

“Look at that oak!” he cried. “And that woodpecker! Isn’t he a beauty!”