against Jack, or over his luggage--but that soon wore off. Jack was
going to stay with Joe at the Coffee Palace for a few weeks, and then
go back up-country, he told me. He was excited and happy. His
brother's manner towards him was as if Jack had just lost his wife, or
boy or someone very dear to him. He would not allow him to do
anything for himself, nor try to--not even lace up his boot. He
seemed to think that he was thoroughly helpless, and when I saw him
pack up Jack's things, and help him at the table and fix his tie and
collar with his great brown hands, which trembled all the time with
grief and gentleness, and make Jack sit down on the bed whilst he got
a cab and carried the trap down to it, and take him downstairs as if
he were made of thin glass, and settle with the landlord--then I knew
that Jack was all right.

We had a drink together--Joe, Jack, the cabman, and I. Joe was very
careful to hand Jack the glass, and Jack made joke about it for Joe's
benefit. He swore he could see a glass yet, and Joe laughed, but
looked extra troubled the next moment.

I felt their grips on my hand for five minutes after we parted.




Arvie Aspinall's Alarm Clock


In one of these years a paragraph appeared in a daily paper to the
effect that a constable had discovered a little boy asleep on the
steps of Grinder Bros' factory at four o'clock one rainy morning.