"I'm going to get her that carriage to-day," said the elder deprecatingly. Then, as if to change the subject, "Did you see old Jamie after he left, yesterday?"
"I think I caught him in a florist's, buying flowers," answered Harley.
"Buying flowers!" The old gentleman burst into such a roar that the passers in the crowded street stopped there to look at him, and went down town the merrier for it. "At a florist's! But what were you doing?" he closed, with sudden gravity.
"All right, governor, quite all right. I was buying them for grandma's birthday. That's all over. Though I'm sorry for her, just the same. How does the man live, now?"
"Jamie says he's doing well," answered the other hurriedly. "By the way, stop at the bank and tell them to give old Jamie a holiday to-day. He'd never take it of himself."
"Aren't you coming down?" Harley spoke as he turned in by Court Square,—a poor neighborhood then, and surrounded by the police lodging-houses and doubtful hotels.
"Not that way," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I hate to see the faces one meets about there, poor things. Hope the flowers will get up to your grandmother, Harley; she'll need 'em!" And the old man went off with a final chuckle. "Hanging on a tree! Well, 'twould be a good thing for the country if he were." Of such mental inconsistencies were benevolent old gentlemen then capable.
But when Harley reached the bank, though it was late, Jamie had not yet arrived. Harley thought he knew the reason of this; but when old Mr. Bowdoin came, at noon, the clerk was still away; and the old gentleman, who had been merry all day, looked suddenly grave and waited. At one Jamie came in, hurrying.
"I hoped you would have taken a holiday to-day," said Mr. Bowdoin.
"I have come down to close the books," replied Jamie, not sharply. Mr. Bowdoin looked at him.