Diamond did not seem to hear this. There was a faraway look in his eyes that made Merriwell wonder if Jack were not thinking of a girl to whom he had said farewell at Bar Harbor earlier in the summer.
Merriwell started another old song, whose music and words were sad enough to bring tears, and Diamond’s rich tenor took it up with him. It was a song of the friends of long ago, and the last stanza ran:
“Some have gone to lands far distant,
And with strangers make their home;
Some upon the world of waters
All their lives are forced to roam;
Some have gone from earth forever,
Longer here they might not stay.
They have found a fairer region,
Far away, far away!