"Have W.H.B.," wrote Bartlett. "Will take him for a week's tour in the country, with Billy's help. Eat them up."
"Rush it," he ordered sternly, "and bring me the answer. I will wait for it on the porch."
The news soon spread that the stranger dining with the general and his daughter was none other than the suddenly famous young stock broker, whose grim defiance of the Street was told in head-lines in the daily papers, and whose life from the cradle up was thrillingly recounted in the Sunday supplement. When he had changed his seat at the table, there had been a suppressed titter of amusement for the eccentricities of a great man, and those who made a study of human nature saw plainly an indication of that character which knew what it wanted and would get it and keep it, overriding all obstacles. A man like that, nothing could down.
As they stood on the porch after dinner, waiting for Bartlett to rejoin them, the four were soon surrounded by an ever-growing circle of friends and near friends, and to his pained surprise, the Watermelon was the admired center of the group. All looked on him much as the general did, not so much as a man but as a character out of the Sunday supplement. Bored to exhaustion, he shook hands limply with a score or more whom he did not know and did not want to know.
It was getting late and he would have to return the clothes and become once more merely the Watermelon. He had forgotten the beauty show and had no heart for it now. When he left Billy nothing more counted, nothing mattered. Old clothes or good, hobo or millionaire, without Billy, one was as desirable as the other. He would return the clothes and beat it up the line that evening. James and Mike could go to grass. Meanwhile, instead of getting the most out of the short space of time allotted to him and having Billy alone somewhere, here he was shaking hands with a frowsy bunch of highbrows.
"Mr. Batchelor, would you invest in copper, if you were I?" queried an elderly maiden whose hand he had weakly grasped and but just dropped.
The Watermelon looked around, desperately, miserably. Billy was gazing at him from the edge of the crowd, awe fighting with admiration and amusement on her small face. Henrietta had presented him gaily, to this one and that, and the general, thoroughly in his element, stood by and showed him off as though he were a new horse or the latest model motor-car.
"No," said the Watermelon. "I would not invest in copper."
"Have you any copper?" questioned another with a wink that the great man was caught.
"No," repeated the Watermelon with the animation of a hitching-post. "I have no copper. I have never had any, not even pennies," he added, thinking how fast the time was going and he would become a tramp again, with ragged clothes and empty pockets, while Billy would still be—Billy.