“Yes: now,” said Old Brownsmith.
“Not till I’ve had a look round,” said Brother Solomon in a slow meditative way, as he took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands, staring about him at the trees and bushes, and then, as a cat gave a friendly rub against his leg, he stooped down after the fashion of his brother, picked it up, and held it on his arm, stroking it all the time.
I had not liked the look of Brother Solomon, for he seemed cold, and quiet, and hard. His face looked stiff, as if he never by any chance smiled; and it appeared to me as if I were going from where I had been treated like a son to a home where I should be a stranger.
“Yes,” he said after looking about him, as if he were going to find fault, “I sha’n’t go back just yet awhile.”
“Oh no! you’ll have a snap of something first, and Grant here will want a bit of time to pack up his things.”
Old Brownsmith seemed to be speaking more kindly to me now, and this made me all the more miserable, for I had felt quite at home; and though Shock and I were bad friends, and Ike was not much of a companion, I did not want to leave them.
Old Brownsmith saw my looks, and he said:
“You will run over now and then to see me and tell me how you get on. Brother Solomon here never likes to leave his glass-houses, but you can get away now and then. Eh, Solomon?”
“P’r’aps,” said Brother Solomon, looking right away from us. “We shall see.”
My heart sank as I saw how cold and unsympathetic he seemed. I felt that I should never like him, and that he would never like me. He had hardly looked at me, but when he did there was to me the appearance in his eyes of his being a man who hated all boys as nuisances and to make matters worse, he took his eyes off a bed of onions to turn them suddenly on his brother and say: