Hugh drew himself up.
“I don't seem to succeed in making people understand that I'm serious,” he began aggrievedly. “I—” With an expressive flourish of his hands he relaxed suddenly, and fell back in his chair. A slow smile came to his lips. “Well, Billy, I'll give up. You've hit it,” he confessed. “I have thought seriously of starting to-morrow morning for half-way to the ends of the earth—Panama.”
“Hugh!”
“Well, I have. Even this call was to be a good-by—if I went.”
“Oh, Hugh! But I really thought—in spite of my teasing—that you had settled down, this time.”
“Yes, so did I,” sighed the man, a little soberly. “But I guess it's no use, Billy. Oh, I'm coming back, of course, and link arms again with their worthy Highnesses, John Doe and Richard Roe; but just now I've got a restless fit on me. I want to see the wheels go 'round. Of course, if I had my bread and butter and cigars to earn, 'twould be different. But I haven't, and I know I haven't; and I suspect that's where the trouble lies. If it wasn't for those natal silver spoons of mine that Bertram is always talking about, things might be different. But the spoons are there, and always have been; and I know they're all ready to dish out mountains to climb and lakes to paddle in, any time I've a mind to say the word. So—I just say the word. That's all.”
“And you've said it now?”
“Yes, I think so; for a while.”
“And—those reasons that have kept you here all summer,” ventured Billy, “they aren't in—er—commission any longer?”
“No.”