Part 28 (1/2)

”What are you doing,” he said without much enthusiasm.

Johan beckoned mysteriously and would not say a word until he had got Keith into the shadow of the huge gateway leading to the paved yard in the rear of the house.

”Can't you come on,” he cried impatiently at last ”I don't want mumsey to see me.”

When both were hidden from the kitchen window through which Fru Gustafsson used to keep a religiously preoccupied eye on the doings of her son, Johan pulled a cigarette from within his coat sleeve and a match from his pocket. Then he scratched the match on the seat of his pants and lit the cigarette with the air of a man who knows what is bliss. Keith watched him with feelings too confused for expression.

”What would your mamma say if she saw you,” he asked at last, instinctively dropping his voice to a whisper.

”She'd tell popsey,” Johan rejoined promptly, ”and I'd get another licking. But it's worth it.”

There was a long pause during which Keith watched his old playmate's unmistakable enjoyment with a mixture of consternation and admiration, of envy and resentment.

”I have got another,” said Johan after a while. ”Try it.”

Keith shook his head. He was on the verge of saying that ”mamma won't let me,” but checked himself in time as he recalled the results of an earlier use of that too truthful explanation.

”Murray wouldn't smoke,” he ventured after another pause.

”Him up there, you mean,” inquired Johan with a gesture of his thumb toward the house across the lane, Of course, he wouldn't. He's a miss.”

”He is not,” Keith cried pa.s.sionately.

”And he's a stiff, too,” Johan went on without any particular display of feeling. ”And you're a fool, that's all.”

There was a coolness between them.

”I think mamma is waiting for me,” remarked Keith as he started to walk off.

”Of course she is waiting for her baby,” Johan retorted with a leer.

Keith stopped and thought. Murray would fight for a thing like that, he said to himself. Or would he? Without having reached a decision Keith made for his own house, trying to look as if Johan didn't exist.

”He has no real use for you, and you'll find it out,” was Johan's parting shot.

Keith was suddenly struck with the coa.r.s.eness of Johan's manners and speech. He was making comparisons in his mind, and as a result the image of Murray seemed more resplendent than ever.

XVIII

”Did you ever try to smoke,” he asked Murray next morning.

”No,” was the disdainful reply. ”I know papa wouldn't like it, and it's nasty anyhow.”

”How do you know,” wondered Keith.

”Because I know,” rejoined Murray. It was a way he had, and it always settled the matter. A cold, tired look would appear on his face if Keith tried to press a subject after such an answer, and before that look Keith quailed.

His state was hopeless. He accepted as law whatever his friend said or did. And although their friends.h.i.+p, such as it was, lasted only two years, Keith did not take up smoking until he was in camp as a conscript at the age of twenty.