learn too, and then you would stop spoiling my comfort with your
everlasting complaints."

"Ah, brother, that is a strong word--everlasting--and isn't quite fair.
I only complain when I suffocate; you know I don't complain when we are
in the open air."

"Well, anyway, you could learn to smoke yourself."

"But my principles, Luigi, you forget my principles. You would not have
me do a thing which I regard as a sin?"

"Oh, bosh!"

The conversation ceased again, for Angelo was sick and discouraged and
strangling; but after some time he closed his book and asked Luigi to
sing "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" with him, but he would not, and
when he tried to sing by himself Luigi did his best to drown his
plaintive tenor with a rude and rollicking song delivered in a thundering
bass.

After the singing there was silence, and neither brother was happy.
Before blowing the light out Luigi swallowed half a tumbler of whisky,
and Angelo, whose sensitive organization could not endure intoxicants of
any kind, took a pill to keep it from giving him the headache.




CHAPTER II