"Do you live in town, sir?"
"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."
Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred, and he entered into this plan with great alacrity; nor ever guessed, till he went home on furlough and put up at the same hotel, how large a part of his fare that night was paid by Mr. Wayne himself.
It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.
Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him sleep a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened again until broad daylight.
The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus, the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own. Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat, orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone, which was all that could be wished.
In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together. There their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road, while Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.
"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said Mr. Wayne, as they stepped along.
"Hard work, sir."
"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you expect to keep yourself at it?"