The boy lost no time in obeying this command, and sank into his chair in the designated alcove with a sigh of relief. He mopped his brow and drank off a glass of ice water at a gulp. It was a warm October day, and the sixteen flights had been somewhat trying. He asked for his father's card, and then sat studying the attractive menu. The Café Reynard was a place famous the country over for its cookery.
"I think I'll have—" he mused for a moment then said helplessly with a laugh—"well, I'm about hungry enough to eat the whole thing. Bring me the——"
Then he recollected, paused, and reluctantly pulled out "Env. No. 8" and broke the seal. "Just a minute," he murmured to the waiter. Then his face turned scarlet, and he stammered under his breath, "Why—why—this can't be——"
"Env. No. 8" ought to have been bordered with black, judging by the dismay it caused the famished lad. It read remorselessly:
Leave Café immediately, without stopping for luncheon, remembering to fee waiter for place retained. Proceed to box office, Metropolitan Theatre, buy a parquet ticket for matinée—"The Pied Piper." At end of first act read Env. No. 9. C. W. Jr.
The Woodbridge blood was up now, and it was with an expression resembling that of his Grandfather Cornelius under strong indignation that Cyrus stalked out of that charming place to proceed grimly toward the Metropolitan Theatre.
"Who wants to see a matinée on an empty stomach?" he groaned. "I suppose I'll be ordered out, anyway, the minute I sit down and stretch my legs. Wonder if father can be exactly right in his mind. He doesn't believe in wasting time, but I'm wasting it to-day by the bucketful. Suppose he's doing this to size me up some way; he isn't going to tire me out as quick as he thinks. I'll keep going till I drop."
Nevertheless, when at the end of the first act of a pretty play by a well-trained company of school children he was ordered to go three miles to a football field, and then ordered away again without a sight of the game he had planned for a week to see, his disgust was intense.
All through that long, warm afternoon he raced about the city and suburbs, growing wearier and more empty with every step. The worst of it was the orders were beginning to assume the form of a schedule, and commanded that he be here at 3:15, and there at 4:05, and so on, which forbade loitering had he been inclined to loiter. In it all he could see no purpose, except the possible one of trying his physical endurance. He was a strong boy, or he would have been quite exhausted long before he reached "Env. No. 17," which was the last but three of the packet. This read:
Reach home at 6:20 p. m. Before entering house read No.18. C. W., Jr.