Then he took a fat silver watch out of his pocket, and looked at that.
"It's pretty nigh supper-time, an' I'm goin' along."
He rose from the bench and walked slowly away, limping slightly, and leaning on the cane—the cane that Napoleon had given him!
We walked toward our homes, maintaining a profound silence. On the other side of the pond we met Rob Currier, who was catching hornpouts. He addressed us derisively.
"Was that old Napoleon Jones you were talking with? He been giving you some of his yarns? My father says he's cracked. He was in the Civil War, but some one got him all worked up about Napoleon, till he thinks he has seen him."
If Rob had hit each one of us in the face with a wet hornpout, the effect would have been more agreeable. We encountered a realist for the first time when we met Rob that afternoon. We were walking through a golden haze of romance, when he suddenly drew this leaden-gray cloud across the sky.
"You make me sick!" declared Ed Mason; "didn't he show us the very cane that Napoleon gave him?"
"Of course he did!" replied Jimmy Toppan.
And "Of course he did!" I chimed in.