“You seem to have a lot of paper about,” commented Landor, picking up some sheets from the floor. “What are you up to these days?”
Jack blushed.
“Out with it, old fellow; you look guilty.”
“I’m—I’m trying to write out the stories I make about the people I see out of my window. You know I like to imagine things about them. She said if I’d write them down the way I tell them they’d entertain her father very much, but I’ve gotten sort of disgusted—it seems such awful rot when it’s down on paper.”
Landor ran his eye over the sheets Jack indicated.
“They are not rot, Jack, they are pretty good. I am not much of a literary chap, but I know when a thing is interesting. When you have taken this way of introducing the neighborhood to Mr. Dale why don’t you send him a weekly bulletin—a regularly gotten up paper with all the neighborhood news? When there isn’t news you can invent it, you know,” smiling; “that is allowable in the newspaper trade.”
“Say, that’s great!” cried Jack. “I’ll call it the—‘In the Ranks’ and make a great big heading for my first column ‘News from the Front’ (that means front window) and I know, that’ll please Mr. Dale, for mother told me he was a distinguished officer in the Civil War and Miss Julie says they were brought up on military principles.” Jack snatched paper and pencil eager to begin.
“Keep on with your stories first, Jack. Why, we shall be setting up a printing-press here next,” and with this delightfully suggestive remark Landor departed.
He did not go on to the club, as was his wont at that hour, but lighted a cigar and walked out of the little court and down through Crana Street to the river, where on the bridge he paused and gazed across to the city with a rapt, preoccupied air. Then, as if the noise of the ever-whirring electric cars disturbed him, he retraced his steps and took a road in the opposite direction which brought him into the quiet and seclusion of the park. The air was keen and crisp and blew in his face in gusty whiffs as he strode on, while all about him in their winter nakedness the trees cast spectral shadows. Usually, from long training and association with western plains and mountain trails, he took note of everything as he passed, but to-night he gazed far on ahead, engrossed in thought. To his annoyance, twice his cigar went out—which was in itself significant. Finally he threw it away and lighted a little bull-dog pipe, his solace and companion in many a solitary stroll.
So those were the Dale girls, he was thinking, of whom Dr. Ware had said so much but of whom, all unconsciously, Jack had revealed more than years of intercourse with them might tell. He thought of Julie as he had seen her, quiet and fair-haired, with that gracious little plea that he should not let them drive him away, to prevent which they had themselves made a hasty exit from the room. And then there was another Julie as Jack had pictured her, turning her heart out for a boy that he might be comforted! He thought of her with reverence. A profound solemnity possessed him, giving him a strangely subdued sensation as of a man emerging from a sanctuary. What was he to whom life was an idle pastime, that he should draw the same breath with her!