UNDER THE SUN
367
"You little crumb," Jesse began, and he moved threateningly,
but then half remembering his nights at the Mission, he walked
around the room, muttering.
"Where are my cigarettes?" Jesse said suddenly. "Did you take
them?"
"I thought you swore off when you got religion," Cade said.
"Yeah," Jesse said in the tone of voice more like his old self,
and he went up to Cade, who was smoking another butt.
"Give me your smoke," he said to Cade.
Cade passed it to him, staring.
"I don't think you heard what I said about leaving," Cade told
Jesse.
"I heard you," Jesse said.
"Well, I'm going to leave you, Jesse. God damn you."
Jesse just nodded from where he now sat on a crate they
m~ed
as a chair. He groaned a little like the smoke was disagreeable
for him.
"Like I say, Jesse," and Cade's face was dry of tears now. "It
may be hard for me to earn money, but I know who I am. I may
be dumb, but I'm
all together!"
"Cade," Jesse said sucking on the cigarette furiously, "I didn't
mean for you to go. After all there is a lot between us."
Jesse's fingers moved nervously over the last tiny fragment of
the cigarette.
"Do you have any more smokes in your pants cuff or any–
where?" Jesse asked, as though he were the younger and the weaker
of the two now.
"I have, but I don't think I should give any to a religious man,"
Cade replied.
Jesse tightened his mouth.
Cade handed
him
another of the butts.
"What are you going to offer me, if I do decide to stay," Cade
said suddenly. "On account of this time I'm not going to stay if you
don't give me an offer!"
Jesse stood up suddenly, dropping
his
cigarette, the smoke com–
ing out of his mouth as though he had .all gone to smoke inside
himself.
"What am I going to offer you?" Jesse said like a man
in
a
dream. "What?" he said sleepily.
