“What is that?” asked both at once.
“Why, as it will be rather lonely for you in that big hotel, I thought I would drop a line to a friend at his bachelor apartments on Madison Avenue and ask him to let you put up with him instead of at the Windsor. He has plenty of room, and he will be delighted to entertain you. Don’t you think you would enjoy that arrangement? His name is Hilliard. He has been in London for a year or two, or Philip there would know him better than by hearsay.”
Gerald and Philip declared that great enjoyment was promised by this arrangement.
“There’s one of the breakfast-bells!” Mr. Marcy exclaimed presently, hurriedly rising. “I believe I have talked over every thing with you that is necessary now. You can begin your packing as soon as you like, Gerald, though you have time enough. I never knew you so quiet over any excitement before, Philip. Are you afraid of being seasick?”
“No, he’s afraid of the responsibility of looking after me!” exclaimed Gerald, quick as a flash.
Philip smiled. “Nothing of the sort,” he said. “Only it’s a good deal more to me to think of going away on such a long journey so very unexpectedly than it is to you. It makes me your guardian in good earnest,” he concluded, with a half smile.
To Touchtone, who nowadays was accustomed to only occasional winter trips to and from New York with Mr. Marcy, and who had known little change from the summer routine of his hotel duties and pleasures, this sudden episode was, truly, a little bewildering. It had all happened in a night—like Aladdin’s palace. To Gerald there was only a passing surprise. Orders from that handsome, gay, idle young father of his, who seemed to think of his son very much as he did of his best horse, or brightest diamond, or any other possession that he liked because it was his own and beautiful and pleasant to have near him, or easy to leave in good hands when it was more convenient, why, to Gerald such changes were already a common story. But the boy’s delight that Philip was to go with him was so keen that nearly all else was forgotten.
The next few days were rather busy ones. The telegrams and letters to Nova Scotia and New York were duly dispatched. The letters might arrive at the forest camp little sooner than the travelers, but the telegram promised more expedition. Moreover, a hospitable reply came back from Mr. Marcy’s friend in New York, the aforesaid Mr. Hilliard. He would be happy to entertain the two. He added that he himself might board their train at a certain station toward noon. He expected to be out of the city “visiting a friend over Sunday.”
“If I stay up there until Tuesday,” he wrote, “coming back, I will hunt the boys out. Then we can travel the rest of the day together.”
Bag and trunk were packed before night, and the trunk expressed direct to the steam-ship baggage-room, that it might be “off our minds,” as Gerald put it. (Afterward they were not sorry.) They drove over to bid Mrs. Wooden and Miss Beauchamp good-bye in the afternoon, and at the tea-table in the evening a good many of the guests stopped to wish a pleasant journey to the two. After Gerald was in his room and asleep Touchtone came down-stairs, where Mr. Marcy sat awaiting him in the office.