"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