“Clothes?” faltered his mother.
“You're losing your punch, Mother? You used to be up on men's rigging. All the boys look like their own shadows these days. English cut. No padding. No heels. Incurve at the waist. Watch me walk.” He flapped across the room, chest concave, shoulders rounded, arms hanging limp, feet wide apart, chin thrust forward.
“Do you mean to tell me that's your present form of locomotion?” demanded his mother.
“I hope so. Been practising it for weeks. They call it the juvenile jump, and all our best leading men have it. I trailed Douglas Fairbanks for days before I really got it.”
And the tension between T. A. Buck and Emma McChesney snapped with a jerk, and they both laughed, and laughed again, at Jock's air of offended dignity. They laughed until the rancor in the heart of the man and the hurt and pity in the heart of the woman melted into a bond of lasting understanding.
“Go on—laugh!” said Jock. “Say, Mother, is there a shower in the bathroom, h'm?” And was off to investigate.
The laughter trailed away into nothingness. “Jock,” called his mother, “do you want your bedroom done in plain or stripes?”
“Plain,” came from the regions beyond. “Got a lot of pennants and everything.”
T. A. Buck picked up his stick from the corner in which it stood.
“I'll run along,” he said. “You two will want to talk things over together.” He raised his voice to reach the boy in the other room. “I'm off, Jock.”