"Now look here, Gregory, you just can't run your bill up any higher."
I already owed him fifteen dollars.
I compounded with him by handing him over my _Illustrated History of
English Literature_. It was like tearing flesh from my side to part with
these volumes.
And now I had no more credit at the Y.M.C.A.
And I went back to Frank Randall, to apply again for my old room over
his shop. He was using it now to store old stoves in. But he moved them
out.
With a sense of despair, compensated by a feeling of sacrifice for my
poetry, I found myself once more back over the tinshop, the hammers
sounding and crashing below.
Old Blore, the cancer doctor, lived in a room in the front. All day long
he sat drinking rum and sugar ... and shipping out his cancer cure, a
white mixture like powdered sugar. Whether it did any good or not, he
believed in it himself....
I have not written about him before ... there are so many odd characters
that I came in contact with that I have not written about ... for this
book is about myself....
But old Blore ... he came waddling back to me, drunk, as usual, on his
rum and sugar.
"Welcome back, Johnnie ... come on, you and Frank, into my room ...
we've got to celebrate your return."
Frank and I set down the stove we were moving, dusted our hands off,
and followed.
"But I won't drink any of your rum, Ed! It's got too much of a kick.
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