“I wonder what you’ll do with it,” said his friend.
“I’m wondering what it’ll do with me,” replied Helm.
Desbrough glanced at him curiously.
George went on to explain. “Yesterday,” said he, “I was a boy of twenty-five”——
“Is that all you are!” cried Desbrough. “Why, even without the whiskers I’d have said thirty-five.”
“Oh, I’m one of those chaps who are born old,” laughed Helm. “I had lines and even wrinkles when I was eighteen. I’ll look younger at forty than I do now. Mother used to say I reminded her of her father—that he was homely enough to stop a clock when he was young and kept getting handsomer as he got older.”
“I know the kind,” said Bill Desbrough, “and it’s the best kind to be.”
“As I was saying,” proceeded George, “yesterday I was a boy. As soon as those fellows nominated me—they were laughing—they thought it was a fine old joke—but, Bill, a queer sort of a something happened inside me. A kind of shock, like a man jumping out of a sound sleep to find the house afire.”
Desbrough was interestedly watching the face of his friend. Its expression was indeed strange—the look of power—sad, stern, inexorable—the look of the men whose wills and passions hurl them on and on to the conquest of the world. Suddenly it changed, softened. The human lines round the mobile, handsome mouth appeared. The gray eyes twinkled and danced. “So you see, Bill,” said he, “the nomination didn’t lose any time in beginning to do things to me.”
“And the whiskers?”