Tom, who had laughed a little not at their joke but at them, felt obliged, in his own phrase, to butt in. He waited till a few puffs of tobacco had soothed them.
"Say, boys, don't you think the fun's gone far enough?"
The two guests turned and stared as if he had been a talking piece of furniture. Tad took his cigarette from his lips.
Tom kept his seat on the arm of the chair, speaking peaceably. "I suppose it isn't my business--except for the old man."
"What have you got to do with him? Is he your father?"
"He's probably somebody's father, and somebody's husband. You can't leave him there all night."
"Because you can't. Fellows like you don't do that sort of thing."
It looked as if Tad Whitelaw had some special animosity against him, when he sprang from his chair to say insolently, "And fellows like you don't hang round where they're not wanted."
"Oh, Tom didn't mean anything--" Guy began to interpose.
"Then let him keep his mouth shut, or--" he nodded toward the door--"or get out."
Tom kept his temper, waiting till Tad dropped back into his chair again. "You see, it's this way. The old chap has a home, and if he doesn't come back to it in the course of, let us say, half an hour his family'll get scared. If they hunt him up at the shop, and find he's been locked in, they'll make a row at the police station just across the street. If the police get in on the business they're sure to find out who did it."
"Well, it won't be you, will it?" Tad sneered again.
"No, it won't be me, but even you don't want to be...."
Tad turned languidly to Guy. "Say, Guy! Awful pity isn't it about little Jennie Halligan! Cutest little dancer in the show, and she's fallen and broken her leg."
Tom got up, walked quietly to the table, picked up the key, and at the same even pace was making for the door, when Tad sprang in front of him.
"Damn you! Where do you think you're going?"
The rage in Tad's face was at being disobeyed. He was not afraid of this fellow two inches taller than himself. He hated him. Ever since coming to Harvard the swine had had the impertinence to be called by the same name, and to look like him. He knew as well as anyone else the nickname by which the bounder was going, and knew that he, the bounder, encouraged it. It advertised him. It made him feel big. He, the brother of the Whitelaw Baby, had been longing to get at the fellow and give him a whack on the jaw. He would never have a better opportunity.