'You shall have a slice of roast beef, whether you want it or not,' said the warden, ringing the bell at his own back-door. 'I recognize the cloak now—the young scamp! How soon he has made it shabby, though,' he continued, taking up a corner where there was an immense tear not too well botched up. 'And so you were on board the Theseus at the time of the explosion? Bring some cold meat here for the good man—or stay! Come in with me, and then you can tell Mrs. Pennington and the young ladies all you know about Harry,—and the siege,—and the explosion.'
So Philip was ushered into the warden's house and made to eat roast beef almost against his will; and he was questioned and cross-questioned by three eager ladies, all at the same time, as it seemed to him. He had given all possible details on the subjects about which they were curious; and was beginning to consider how he could best make his retreat, when the younger Miss Pennington went up to her father—who had all this time stood, with his hat on, holding his coat-tails over his arms, with his back to the fire. He bent his ear down a very little to hear some whispered suggestion of his daughter's, nodded his head, and then went on questioning Philip, with kindly inquisitiveness and patronage, as the rich do question the poor.
'And where are you going to now?'
Philip did not answer directly. He wondered in his own mind where he was going. At length he said,
'Northwards, I believe. But perhaps I shall never reach there.'
'Haven't you friends? Aren't you going to them?'
There was again a pause; a cloud came over Philip's countenance. He said,
'No! I'm not going to my friends. I don't know that I've got any left.'
They interpreted his looks and this speech to mean that he had either lost his friends by death, or offended them by enlisting.
The warden went on,