Part 33 (2/2)
”So you have n't any children.”
”Hardly.”
”Then,” said Peter, ”you have your whole life ahead of you. You have n't begun to live anywhere yet.”
”And you?”
”It's the same with me,” confessed Peter, with a quick breath.
”Only--well, I haven't been able to make even the beginning you 've made.”
Monte leaned forward with quickened interest.
”That's the thing you wanted so hard?” he asked.
”Yes.”
”To marry and have children?”
Monte was silent a moment, and then he added:--
”I know a man who did that.”
”A man who does n't is n't a man, is he?”
”I--I don't know,” confessed Monte. ”I 've visited this friend once or twice. Did you ever see a kiddy with the croup?”
”No,” admitted Peter.
”You're darned lucky. It's just as though--as though some one had the little devil by the throat, trying to strangle him.”
”There are things you can do.”
”Things you can try to do. But mostly you stand around with your hands tied, waiting to see what's going to happen.”
”Well?” queried Peter, evidently puzzled.
”That's only one of a thousand things that can happen to 'em. There are worse things. They are happening every day.”
”Well?”
”When I think of Chic and his children I think of him pacing the hall with his forehead all sweaty with the ache inside of him. Nothing pleasant about that, is there?”
Peter did not answer for a moment, and then what he said seemed rather pointless.
”What of it?” he asked.
”Only this,” answered Monte uneasily. ”When you speak of a wife and children you have to remember those facts. You have to consider that you 're going to be torn all to shoe-strings every so often. Maybe you open the gates of heaven, but you throw open the gates of h.e.l.l too.
There's no more jogging along in between on the good old earth.”
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