Kenny | Page 5

out a hot-headed summary of
book-keeping that made his father gasp.
Kenny's air of conscious rectitude vanished. In an instant he was
defensive and excited, resenting the unexpected need of the one and the
distraction of the other. The sum of his episodic rambling on Brian's
tongue was appalling. He was willing to concede that his imagination
was wayward and romantic. But why in the name of Heaven must a
man--and an Irishman--justify the indiscretions of his wit? Well, the lad
had always had an unnatural trend for fact. Kenny remembered with
resentment the Irish fairies that even in his childhood Brian had been
unable to accept, excellent fairies with feet so big that in time of storm
they stood on their heads and used them for umbrellas!

Staggered by Brian's inflexible air of resolution, Kenny, his fingers
clenched in his hair, began another circle. He reverted to his grievance.
The quarrel this time was sharp and brief. Brian hated repetitions.
Hotly impenitent he flung out of the studio and slammed his bedroom
door, leaving Kenny dazed and defensive and utterly unable to
comprehend the twist of fate by which the dignity of his grievance had
been turned to disadvantage.
Garry glanced at the gray haze in the court beyond the window and
rose.
"It's nearly daybreak," he said. "And I've a model coming at ten. She's
busy and I can't stall."
He left Kenny amazed and aggrieved at his desertion. Certainly in the
grip of untoward events, a man is entitled to someone with whom he
can talk it over.
Wakeful and nervous, Kenny smoked, raked his hair with his fingers
and brooded. Brian had been disinherited much too often to resent it all
at once to-night. As for the shotgun, that dispute or its equivalent was
certainly as normal a one as regularity could make it. And he had
related many a tale unhampered by fact that Brian had simply ignored.
"What on earth has got into the lad?" he wondered impatiently.
Ah, well, he was a good lad, clean-cut and fine, with Irish eyes and an
Irish temper like his father. Kenny forgot and forgave. Both were a
spontaneity of temperament. Brian and he would begin again. That was
always pleasant.
He strode remorsefully to Brian's door and knocked. There was no
answer. He knocked again. Ordinarily he would have flung back the
door with a show of temper. Penitential, he opened it with an air of
gentle forbearance. The room, which gave evidence of anger and
hurried packing, was empty, the door that opened into the corridor, ajar.
Brian was gone.

White and startled, Kenny unearthed the chafing dish and made himself
some coffee.
Brian, of course, would return in the morning, whistling and sane. He
would call something back in his big, pleasant voice to the elevator
man who worshipped him, and bang the studio door. The lad was not
given to such definite revolt. Besides, Brian, he must remember, was an
O'Neill, an Irishman and a son of his, an indisputable trio of good
fortune; as such he could be depended upon not to make an ass of
himself.
CHAPTER II
THE UNSUCCESSFUL PARENT
Kenny slept as he lived, with a genius for dreams and adventure. He
remembered moodily as he rose at noon that he had dreamed a
kaleidoscopic chase, precisely like a moving picture with himself a star,
in which, bolting through one taxi door and out another with a shotgun
in his hand, he had valiantly pursued a youth who had, miraculously,
found the crooked stick of the psaltery and stolen it. The youth proved
to be Brian. That part was reasonable enough. Brian was the only one
who could find the thing long enough to steal it.
It was not likely to be a day for work. That he felt righteously could not
be expected. Nevertheless, with hurt concession to certain talk of
indolence the night before, he donned a painter's smock and, filled with
a consciousness of tremendous energy to be expended in God's good
time, telephoned John Whitaker.
Yes, Brian had been there. Where he was now, where he would be,
Whitaker did not feel at liberty to divulge. Frankly he was pledged to
silence. Kenny willing, he would be up to dinner at six. He had a lot to
say.
Kenny banged the receiver into the hook in a blaze of temper, hurt and
unreasonable, and striding to the rear window flung it up to cool his
face. There were bouillon cups upon the sill. Bouillon cups! Bouillon

cups! Thunder-and-turf! There were bouillon cups everywhere. Nobody
but Brian would have bought so many handles. A future of handles
loomed drearily ahead. Brian could talk of disorder all he chose. Half
of it was bouillon cups. Bitterly resenting the reproach they