The car seemed to crawl through town, and Tom, in a fever of impatience lest his visit be timed too late, glanced at his watch every two or three blocks. Finally, though, the conductor called Alameda Avenue and Tom descended. It wasn’t hard to find the Morris residence, for the number of the house was plainly in view on each of the round electric globes that flanked the gate. A short path led to a stone-pillared porch. The house was not so grand and impressive as he had feared it might be. It was of stone as to the lower story and shingles above and had many dormers of different sizes. But Tom didn’t have time to receive more than a fleeting impression of its outward appearance then, for a dozen strides took him to the door. There he paused a moment, in the soft glow of an overhead light, to rehearse his speech to the maid or the butler. Finally he pressed the button beside the wide doorway and waited. An inner door opened and Tom saw disappointedly through a meshed curtain that it was a woman who was answering his summons. But when the outer door gave way it was Mrs. Morris herself who stood there. In the background a maid in cap and apron hovered uncertainly for a minute and disappeared. Tom, in his surprise, almost recited his piece about the visiting cards to Mrs. Morris, and would have doubtless had not that lady held out her hand and taken the conduct of affairs at once. Before he knew it, Tom was inside, fumbling with his hat and holding out his bundle insistently.
“I brought the skates,” he said.
“That’s very nice of you. And we’ll take them upstairs in just a moment. First, though, I want you to meet my husband. I’ve told him about you.”
Tom followed her across a soft-piled rug and through a wide doorway into a room all warmth and colour and leather chairs and book-lined walls and low lights. A very tall man with grey moustaches and a deep, pleasant voice shook hands with him, spoke of the cold weather, thanked him for coming, and, as Tom backed away, colliding with a table, said he hoped he’d see him again. Tom was glad when he was safely through the library doors once more, and Mrs. Morris, chatting gaily to put him at his ease, led the way up a wide, carpeted stairway so gradual of ascent that one hardly realised one was climbing. Another broad hall, with silvery walls hung with many unobtrusive pictures and furnished with easy-chairs and couches in cretonne, received him, and across this he followed to a doorway.
“Here he is, Sid,” said Mrs. Morris. She stood aside to let Tom enter first. “You see,” she went on, “I can’t announce you by name because I don’t know what your name is.”
“It’s Tom Pollock, ma’am,” stammered Tom.
“Well, then, this is Tom, Sidney. And he’s brought the skates for you to look at. Tom, this is my son, Sidney.”
The boy in the easy-chair held out his left hand. “Don’t mind my not getting up, do you?” he asked. “They won’t let me move around much yet. Glad to meet you. I think I’ve seen you over at school.”
Mrs. Morris pushed forward a chair and Tom sat down, holding his hat very firmly and finding nothing to say just then. Sidney was already undoing the package, frankly eager. Mrs. Morris leaned above him smilingly. Tom’s eyes wandered about the room. It was certainly jolly. He had never seen anything at all like it, had never even imagined that such a room could exist. There were two recessed windows with wide, comfortable seats beneath them and low book-cases at each side. (Just the place, Tom thought, to curl up and read.) The walls were papered in grey and the big rug that not quite covered the floor was grey, too, with a broad border of dark blue. The bed, on which the clothes were neatly and invitingly turned down, was a sort of a grey as well, and the silken coverlid that lay across the foot was grey and blue. Even the furniture and the window curtains repeated the colours. A small desk near the chair in which the occupant of the splendid apartment was seated held books and papers and writing materials and a green-shaded electric light that could be twisted about in any direction and to any height. On the walls hung a few plainly-framed pictures, while above the fireplace, in which a coal fire glowed cosily, were two gaily-hued posters, a pair of fencing foils, crossed under a mask, and a yard-long photograph of a football game in progress. Beneath that, on the mantel, was a long row of photographs. Tom’s examination, a little envious by now, was interrupted by Sidney.
“I say, Mumsie, they’re peaches! Gee, I don’t know which pair I want. What do you say, Tom?”