“A roomful of his things!” ejaculated Philip, remembering the locked door.
“Yes; when he was a young man an’ used to visit oftener, we got in the way of keepin’ a chamber up-stairs that wasn’t no use to the family of us, as a kind o’ store-room for him. There’s quite a good many old articles o’ furniture an’ trunks and papers. He says they aint o’ any use, though they belonged in the family. He asked us to let ’em stay till he settled somewhere. He aint settled yet.”
“Doesn’t he live anywhere?”
Mrs. Probasco gave a cough. “I guess you might best say he lives every-where. He’s a roving gentleman, by his own account.”
“Then, I suppose, he’s generally in New York, and makes that his head-quarters,” suggested Gerald. “My father says people who live out of New York most of the time always say that. Is he a broker?”
“I don’t know just what his business is,” returned Mrs. Probasco. Philip surmised that interesting facts as to Mr. Jennison lurked about. He decided not to interrupt Gerald’s thoughtless catechism. “Sometimes his business seems to be one thing, and sometimes another,” the farmer’s wife concluded.
“I’d like to see him.”
“I don’t think you’d be specially taken with him,” dryly returned Mrs. Obed. “But he might happen here before you get off. He goes all over the country in long journeys. Sometimes Mr. Clagg—that’s the lawyer over to Chantico—don’t know his address for weeks.”
“And he’s really the last of the Jennisons, you say? What a pity he don’t live in this old place himself, and keep it up, for the sake of the family.”
Mrs. Probasco examined a stocking carefully.