Nothing was said until they reached the business district—a short walk from home. Here John Cole turned into a retail hardware store, and Joshua followed.
“Sit down here,” said his father, indicating a chair. “I want to have a talk with the owner of this store.”
Now Joshua thought he understood what was to be done with him. He was to be taken from school, for good, perhaps, because he was a failure, and placed in a hardware store to learn his father’s business. Well, though he had no taste for business, that was better than being half drowned—better than returning to Old Madmallet next season, a year behind in his studies.
He sat there obediently, gray-blue eyes traveling over the store, while his father talked with a fat man in shirt-sleeves. Frequently he heard his father’s voice lifted in laughter, and once he saw him slap the hardware man good-naturedly on the back. What a different man he was, thought Joshua, when dealing with people not connected with his family. The two parted presently with a hearty handclasp, and Joshua followed his father into the street again.
Side by side they continued their journey, and Joshua, believing that there was no opening for him in the hardware store they had just left, wondered where they were going now. Five blocks farther on they entered a second hardware store, where a similar performance took place.
But again Joshua was not called to meet the proprietor, as he had fully expected he would be, and once more the uncommunicative pair resumed their sauntering.
There followed one more similar call, which to Joshua seemed as fruitless of results as had been the previous ones, and then again they walked away together. And now, coming suddenly abreast a large brick building, his father said:
“Let’s go in here a minute.”
Side by side they climbed a short flight of wide stone stairs. Ahead of them and above them were great glass doors in an arched doorway. John Cole turned the knob of one of them, and stood back for Joshua to enter first.
Joshua went in, to find himself gazing at a blue-coated policeman, with white chevrons on his arm, seated behind a high, dark wood desk, busily writing in a large, flat book. There was a low railing before the desk, and on Joshua’s side of it three more policemen lounged in office chairs.