Walter's Price — Alice Adams

On the way home along the dingy street they pass shops that pretend to sell tobacco and soft drinks, while the real trade, in new liquor, dice and rough girls, goes on in the back rooms. On the veranda of a rooming house next to a barber's lounge young men in caps and tight, bright suits, all wearing the same look of amused contempt. They remind Alice of someone. Then Walter steps out of the door in a new straw hat, twirling the ivory-topped Malacca cane she gave him. On his arm is a thin girl in black and white, chewing gum. The loungers sing at them. 'Come on, Wallie,' says the girl. Walter grins faintly and nods at Russell.

Russell laughs and says her brother has found plenty of 'colour' for his writing. Alice has forgotten her own story about Walter being literary, and at first does not understand. Russell tells her kindly that boys do odd things and outgrow them. At her gate, without looking at him, she says it is spoiled: their walk, everything; somehow it always is. Then she presses his hand hard, as if to thank him for being kind, and runs inside. Upstairs she throws herself face down on the bed with her hat still on. When she tells her mother, her real fear is that Russell will think she tells stories about other things too. Through new tears she admits he is just dear. Mrs. Adams insists Walter is a good boy, and that if he is not, it is her fault for not pushing his father sooner.

At dinner Walter waits for Alice to 'spring it', but nobody says a word. Then his father calls him upstairs. It is not about the girl. Adams is leaving Lamb's to start the glue business, using every cent he has saved and a loan on the house, and he needs Walter to quit by the end of next week and help. Walter refuses. Adams insists Lamb's will fire him anyway once they know, but cannot say why. Then Walter names a price: three hundred dollars, now, and he will come. Adams calls him a little fool for asking to be bribed to help his own family. Pale, with his lopsided smile, Walter asks whether his father would not give him three hundred dollars to save his life. Adams tells him to get out. Walter leaves whistling, and Adams sinks into his chair, groaning about the way of the transgressor.