Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear
and said, "Right down." Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a
closet and brought them to his son. "Get into this coat," he said.
"You're goin' home."
"All ri'," Roscoe murmured, obediently.
They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through
the outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped
it, and told the operator to take on no more passengers until they
reached the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got
into the automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked
into his own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father
having spoken a word in the interval.
Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room
without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he
heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant
fragments of song:
WHO looks a mustang in the eye?...
With a leap from the ground
To the saddle in a bound.
And away--and away!
Hi-yay!
It was the first time in Sheridan's life that he had ever detected any
musical symptom whatever in Bibbs--he had never even heard him whistle
--and it seemed the last touch of irony that the useless fool should
be merry to-day.
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