Herold rescued his hat and deliberately put it down. “Oh, yes, you have,” said he, with smiling seriousness. “You have every right. Have you ever considered the ethics of friendship? Few people do consider them nowadays. Existence has grown so complicated that such a simple, primitive thing as friendship is apt to be neglected in the practical philosophy of life. Our friendship, John, is something I could no more tear out of me than I could tear out my heart itself. It's one of the few vital, real things--indeed, it's perhaps the only tremendous thing in my damfool of a life. I believe in friendship. If a man hath not a friend, let him quit the stage. Old Bacon had sense: a man has every right over his friend, every claim upon him, except the right of betrayal. My purse is yours, your purse is mine. My time is yours, and yours mine. My joys and sorrows are yours, and yours mine. But a friend may not supplant a friend either in material ambition or in the love of a woman. That is the unforgivable sin, high treason against friendship. Don't talk folly about having no right.” He lit with nervous fingers the cigarette he was about to light when he began his harangue. Risca gripped him by the arm. “God knows I don't want you to go. I 'm pretty tough, and I 'm not going to cave in, but it's God's comfort to have you here. If I'm not a merry companion to you, what the devil do you think I am to myself?” He walked up and down the dreary room, on which the dark of evening had fallen. At last he paused by his writing-table, and then a sudden thought flashing on him, he smote his temples with his hands. “I must send you away, Wallie. It's necessary. I have my column to write for The Herald. It must be in by eleven. I had forgotten all about it. They won't want my name,--it would damn the paper,--but I suppose they 're counting on the column, and I don't want to leave them in the lurch.” “They don't want your column this week, at any rate,” said Herold. “Oh, don't begin to bellow. I went to see Ferguson yesterday. He's as kind as can be, and of course wants you to go on as usual. But no one except a raving idiot would expect stuff from you to-day. And as for your silly old column, I've written it myself. I suggested it to Ferguson, and he jumped at it.” “You wrote my column?” said Risca, in a softened voice. “Of course I did, and a devilish good column, too. Do you think I can only paint my face and grin through a horse-collar?” “What made you think of it? I did n't.” “That's precisely why I did,” said Herold. Risca sat down, calmer in mood, and lit a pipe. Herold, the sensitive, accepted this action as an implication of thanks. Risca puffed his tobacco for a few moments in silence, apparently absorbed in enjoyment of the fragrant subtleties of the mixture of honeydew and birdseye and latakia and the suspicion of soolook that gives mystery to a blend. At last he spoke.