morose kind of pity. "You go on and get your breakfast, kid. I
don't want any. I'll stay here for awhile."

He sat down on the side of the cheap, iron bedstead, and
emptied his pockets on the top quilt. He straightened the
crumpled bills and counted them, and sorted the silver pieces.
All told, he had sixty-three dollars and twenty cents. He sat
fingering the money absently, his mind upon other things. Upon
Marie and the baby, to be exact. He was fighting the impulse to
send Marie the money. She might need it for the kid. If he was
sure her mother wouldn't get any of it... A year and a half was
quite a while, and fifteen hundred dollars wasn't much to live on
these days. She couldn't work, with the baby on her hands...

Frank watched him curiously, his jaws still resting between his
two palms, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his lips loose and
trembling. A dollar alarm clock ticked resonantly, punctuated now
and then by the dull clink of silver as Bud lifted a coin and let
it drop on the little pile.

"Pretty good luck you had last night," Frank ventured wishfully.
"They cleaned me."

Bud straightened his drooping shoulders and scooped the money
into his hand. He laughed recklessly, and got up. "We'll try her
another whirl, and see if luck'll bring luck. Come on--let's
go hunt up some of them marks that got all the dough last night.
We'll split, fifty-fifty, and the same with what we win. Huh?"

"You're on, bo--let's go." Bud had gauged him correctly--