“Tomorrow we’ll hang around the city, as there are a few things I’ve got down on my list of wanted articles,” he observed in conclusion. “Besides, I promised him I’d fetch you around so as to make his acquaintance, for he always asks about you.”
“Huh! Spose I jest has to get over there some time’r other,” Perk remarked, as though not particularly eager to go. “But I shore hopes as heow on the follerin’ mawnin’ we kin start off, an’ go so far we’ll jest have to make camp in them there dark gloomy lookin’ pine woods.”
“It must depend a whole lot on the kind of weather they dish up for that day,” Jack informed him. “If it’s foggy, and the visibility poor, we might as well hang out here in the city, since we couldn’t do any paying business looking into a blank wall of fog, you know, Wally boy.”
“Okay—suits me jest as well as things go,” the other announced carelessly enough; “I aint acarin’ a scrap whether school keeps or not, so long as we gits aour three square meals a day, an’ dandy ones at that, real Southern style, like I used to have when I was a Birmin’ham kid, runnin’ raound barefoot with my mates, jest like Tom Sawyer an’ Huck Finn uster do in them ole Mississippi days we done reads ’baout in the books.”
It was just as well that Jack had decided to drop a day in their search for hidden haunts of the smugglers; for when morning came the sky was overcast, and poor visibility seemed to be “on tap” for the entire day.
Jack went about doing his errands, while Perk seemed content to stick to the isolation of their comfortable room, doing some reading of the bundle of well known daily papers he had managed to secure at a shop they passed during the short walk taken in company after breakfast—that, and the waiting to get up an appetite for dinner seemed to be the full extent of Perk’s ambition, it was plain to be seen—when he had a day off, and the “eats” were so unusually tempting, it pleased Perk to act as if a lazy streak had gripped him.
“I think I forgot to tell you,” Jack chanced to tell his comrade as the afternoon began to wane, “that we are invited to dine with Mr. Herriott and his fine little family tonight. Oh! you needn’t be so alarmed, partner; we’ll simply clean up, and look a bit dressy; you’ll soon be on good terms with both him and his charming wife; as to the kids I warrant you fall dead for them at first sight.”
Perk, whose face had at first taken on an expression of sheer dejection, seemed to brighten up at mention of the youngsters; for he even grinned, and started to the bathroom, as if to begin washing up.
They arrived in good time, and Perk was soon made acquainted with the entire little family—of course under the name and character beneath which he was hiding his own identity at that particular time.
Just as sagacious Jack had surmised would happen, Perk was soon feeling quite at home, making “wise-cracks” with the two wideawake youngsters, and even engaging in more or less conversation with his host and Mrs. Herriott.