CHAPTER VIII.
THE GO AHEAD NO. 2.
The dinner hour passed off as usual, and one to have seen Bob as he arose from the table and bade his mother good-by before returning to the wharf, would have thought him the very last boy who could have been guilty of a mean or dishonorable action. But he had changed wonderfully during the last twelve hours; and having deceived his mother once, it was easier to do it a second time.
Although there was no necessity for it, he left a false impression on her mind by saying:
"Perhaps I shall see a chance to earn half a dollar or so, during the afternoon." This led her to believe that her son intended to hold himself in readiness to accept any offer of work that might be made him; while Bob himself knew that he had no such idea. He said what he did simply because he wanted an excuse to get away from home.
The fact was, Bob was totally unfit for labor of any kind. He had made so many calculations concerning the twenty-five hundred dollars, which he was certain he should receive in a week or ten days at the very farthest, and he was so impatient to hear from the money he had just sent off, that any thing which would have turned his thoughts into other and more profitable channels was distasteful to him. He wanted to do nothing but think over his plans for the future; so he returned to the wharf, where for four hours and a half he walked listlessly about with his hands in his pockets, his eyes bent upon the ground, and his thoughts busy with his new boat, and his prospective fortune.
During the middle of the day the ferry-boys had very little business to attend to, and, from where Bob stood, he could see them lounging in their boats in the shade of the piers, on both sides of the harbor. Among them he saw Sam Barton, who, seated in his fine yawl in the midst of his friends, was delivering some very amusing discourse, judging by the peals of laughter that came from that direction.
The fisher-boy soon became aware of the fact that he was the subject of Sam's remarks, for every now and then he could see the bully rise up in his boat and shake his fist at him. Bob, however, very wisely made no reply to these demonstrations. He had the satisfaction of knowing that the triumph which the bully was then enjoying was destined to be of short duration, and that his turn would come next.