It was the first time Michael had gone so deep into his plans with Sam, and he longed now to have his comradeship in this hope too.
“Oh, sure!” said Sam much relieved that Michael had not mentioned laws about gambling dens and pickpockets. Sam might be willing to reform his own course in the brilliant wake of Michael but as yet he had not reached the point where he cared to see vice and dishonesty swept off the globe.
They went slowly back to the white room to find Will French leading a chorus of small urchins in the latest popular melody while they kept time with an awkward shuffle of their ill-shod feet.
Sam growled: “Cut it out, kids, you scratch de floor,” and Will French subsided with apologies.
“I never thought of the floor, Endicott. Say, you ought to have a gymnasium and a swimming pool here.”
Michael laughed.
“I wish we had,” he declared, “but I’d begin on a bath-room. We need that first of all.”
“Well, let’s get one,” said Will eagerly. “That wouldn’t cost so much. We could get some people to contribute a little. I know a man that has a big plumbing establishment. He’d do a little something. I mean to tell him about it. Is there any place it could be put?”
Sam followed them wondering, listening, interested, as they went out into the hall to see the little dark hole which might with ingenuity be converted into a bath-room, and while he leaned back against the door-jamb, hands in his pockets, he studied the face of the newcomer.
“Guess dat guy’s all right,” he reassured Michael as he helped him turn the lights out a little later, while Will waited on the doorstep whistling a new tune to his admiring following. Will had caught “de kids.”