Philip turned into the office, where he began giving the gentlemen there the history of the battle at Wooden’s Ravine. “Served him right, Philip!” heartily exclaimed the genial book-keeper, Mr. Fisher, on hearing of the stick throwing, “and you’ll find that little fellow a youngster worth your knowing.”
Meantime Gerald was running lightly up the broad, smoothly polished oak stairs and entering the room that the father had engaged for his son’s use. Not being able, or thinking he was not, to have the boy with him in Nova Scotia, he had wished to make Gerald as luxuriously comfortable as a lad could be. The gay Ossokosee House had, nevertheless, a perfectly new interest to Gerald now. The little boy had been welcomed by a good many of the guests stopping there. There were a few of his own age that had been his chums, for want of others. But now that he had met Touchtone things began to look all at once more enjoyable.
And what could be the reason that so open-hearted and jolly a companion should be so alone in the world, and feel so terribly cut, and blush in that embarrassed fashion because of a simple question concerning his father?
Philip came up to Number 45 in due time that afternoon. He looked over Gerald’s foreign photographs and his coin collection. And so the time sped on, and interest in the acquaintance mutually prospered.
The next day they did not meet until after supper. Mr. Marcy had only three or four letters he wished Philip to write. When these were finished he and Gerald walked out into the hotel grounds, talking of the coming regatta and feeling quite like old companions. Two crews only were to row—the Ossokosee Boat Club and the Victory Rowing Association—and much interest was attached to the race. Mr. Marcy had offered a prize of two hundred dollars to the winners, and, furthermore, the Ossokosee Club were determined not to be beaten for the fourth year. The last three regattas had resulted, one after another, in the triumph of the elated Victors. Philip was a zealous member of the Ossokosees, and found it hard work to keep in any kind of training, what with his duties at the hotel. But then the whole affair was not so “professional” as it might have been, and Touchtone’s natural athletic talents and Mr. Marcy’s indulgence helped him to pull his oar as skillfully and enduringly as any other of the six.
Gerald listened with all his ears to his friend’s account of their last year’s defeat. All at once Philip remembered a message for Mrs. Ingraham about the flowers from the conservatory.
“Please stand here by the arbor one moment?” he asked. “I’ll just run to the dining-room and find her.”
Now, there was a long rustic seat outside the thick growth of vines, running over the same arbor. Gerald sat down upon this bench. Some guests of the house were grouped inside, conversing together. No secrets were being told. Gerald did not feel himself an eavesdropper. In fact, he did not pay any heed to the talking going on just back of his head until he heard a slow voice that was a certain General Sawtelle’s.
“O, young Touchtone, you mean? Yes, yes; a remarkably fine young fellow! Any father might be proud of such a son—and any son ashamed of such a father as he had.”
Gerald started almost to his feet.