thousand — lads like Nelson, Gans, and Wolgast.

“You understand the point I am making,” Paula took up. “Here are the pair of you. Neither will see forty again. You’re a pair of hard- bitten sinners. You’ve gone through hardship and exposure that dropped others all along the way. You’ve had your fun and folly. You’ve roughed and rowdied over the world — ”

“Played the wild ass,” Graham laughed in.

“And drunk deep,” Paula added. “Why, even alcohol hasn’t burned you. You were too tough. You put the other fellows under the table, or into the hospital or the grave, and went your gorgeous way, a song on your lips, with tissues uncorroded, and without even the