Some persons have a faculty of not being surprised. Mr. Banger generally believed he had. But it is improbable that any Knoxport citizen was ever quite so astonished as he was by the first sentence of Philip’s account. During the process of mastering the details that came after it he fairly reveled in such a story as it unfolded. He could hardly be kept from calling Joe and all Knoxport to draw near and partake of such a feast.
“I do, I do congratulate you with all my heart!” he declared over and over. “Your escape has been a miracle. And to think they have been mourning and lamenting and giving you both quite up,” he continued. “But the mourning is nothing to make light of when it’s a father’s for his son, or such a kind of grief as Mr. Marcy’s. I’m glad I didn’t say more before that little fellow. Never did I see a man so cut to the heart in all my life as his father. Marcy had to keep with him every minute of the little time they were in town.”
“The thing is, then, to get word to them both just as soon as can be. Unless they went straight back to town or to the Ossokosee—”
“Somehow I doubt if they did. I think I heard to the contrary. We’ll wire at once. Will you stay here with young Saxton till you get answers to your telegrams?”
“I guess that’s the best thing for us.”
“I’ll see to it you’re comfortable. And, look here, do you know what I’d do next—the very minute you’ve got through your dispatch?”
“No; what, sir?”
“I’d go down to the office of the Knoxport Anchor and ask for Benny Fillmore, the editor. Fillmore sends all the news from this part of the country to some of the New York and Boston papers. He’ll telegraph your whole story to two or three, to-night. It’ll be in print to-morrow, and that’s a way of telling all your friends that you’re alive and waiting to hear from them that likely will beat any other.”
“That is a good idea,” Philip replied, struck with it. “It’s doubtful how soon we can get direct word.”