When they got out into the street again, night had almost come. It was about six o’clock, the lights in the streets had gone on, and in the figures of the people that went by, and the motor cars that flashed past sparsely, there was something hurried, mournful, and departing, like the breath of autumn and old leaves stirred by wind and driven on.

Neither spoke for some time, nor dared look at the other: the boy walked with lowered head, his hat pulled down across his eyes. His lips were puffed and swollen, and his left eye was now entirely closed, a blind poached swelling of bruised blue. They passed below a street lamp, paused for a minute in the hard white glare, turned as if impelled by sombre instinct, and regarded each other with the stern defenceless eye of shame and sorrow. Luke looked earnestly at his brother for a second and then said gently:

“How’s your eye, Eugene?”

The boy said nothing: sullenly, steadily, with his one good eye he returned his brother’s look. Luke stared for a minute at the nauseous, fatted purple where the bad eye was, suddenly cursed bitterly, turned, and walked ahead.

“The d-d-dirty bastards!” he said. “I’ve always fought they were a f-f-fairly decent lot till now, but the nice, damned, d-d-d-dirty South Car’lina —” he ground his teeth together, paused again, and turned towards his younger brother: “What d-d-did they do to you while you were in there? I w-w-w-want to know what happened.”

“I guess I got what was coming to me,” the boy muttered. “We were all drunk, and we were driving pretty fast. So I want you to know that I’m not making any excuses for that.”

“Well,” Luke said quietly, “that’s all over now, and there’s no use to w-w-worry about it. I guess you’re not the f-f-f-first one that it’s happened to. So let’s f-f-forget about that.” He was silent for a moment, and then he went on sternly: “But if those b-b-bastards beat you up while you were in there I w-w-w-want to know about it.”

“I’m not kicking about it,” the boy muttered again, because he was ashamed to tell him of the struggle he had had with the two policemen. “I guess I had it coming — but there was one thing!” he said with a surge of bitter............