“You men are always fishing for excuses to do what you ought to be dying to do anyhow. Go on, and don't skip anything.”
And Tommy gladly began the epic narrative of his Dayton life, barring only the secret. He told it not only honestly, but in detail. That she was as interested as he was plain, until he began to fear that he was making himself into a hero. But it was too late to alter the portrait, so to preserve his self-respect he began to tell her all about Thompson and Thompson's dreams and Thompson's plans.
“Tommy,” she exclaimed, excitedly, “he is a wonderful man. I had no idea business was like that. And you are the luckiest boy in the world to work in such a place.”
“Yes, and it was by a fluke that I landed the job.”
“I don't care. It was the luckiest thing that ever happened, even if it took you away from home.”
“I suppose it was, but let me tell you it was mighty tough at first.” And he told her how he had fought homesickness, so that he actually believed it. And naturally she also believed him.
“You might have written,” she reproached him.
“If you had read the letters I wanted to write but didn't, you would have had to put in eight hours a day. It was considerate of me not to, don't you think?”
“But you promised you would.”
“But I wasn't going to take an unfair advantage of your youth,” he said, and looked at her with a benevolent smile. And then he wondered why he had not written every day. He could not understand it now.