"I hope so," said Gideon, "Pat will be pleased."
"I shall like to have a son," said Harvey D., frankly wistful.
"Other one has the gumption," said Sharon, casting a final rain of cigar ash upon the abused rug at his feet.
"The sands of the Whipple family were running out—we renew them," said Gideon, cheerily.
CHAPTER VII
The ensuing week was marked for the Cowan-Penniman household by sensational developments. To Dave Cowan on Monday morning, standing at his case in the Advance office, nimbly filling his stick with type, following the loosely written copy turned in by Sam Pickering, the editor, had portentously come a messenger from the First National Bank to know if Mr. Cowan could find it convenient that day to give Harvey D. Whipple a few moments of his time. Dave's business life had hitherto not included any contact with bankers; he had simply never been in a bank. The message left him not a little disturbed.
The messenger, Julius Farrow, a bookkeeper, could answer no questions. He knew only that Harvey D. had been very polite about it, and if Dave couldn't find it convenient to-day he was to say when he might find it convenient to have a conference. Dave felt relieved at hearing the word "conference." A mere summons to a strange place like a bank might be sinister, but a polite invitation to a conference at his convenience was different. He put down his half-filled stick. He had been at work on the Advance locals for the Wednesday paper, two and three-line items to tell of the trivial going and coming of nobodies which he was wont to set up with an accompaniment of satirical comment on small-town activities. He had broken off in the midst of perpetuating in brevier type the circumstance that Adelia May Simsbury was home from normal school over Sunday to visit her parents, Rufus G. Simsbury and wife, north of town.
"I'll go with you," Dave told Julius Farrow. "I can always find a little time for bankers. I never kept one waiting yet, and I won't begin now. Ask any of em—they'll tell you I come when called."