“Hello, Bill!” His voice was still a clear, almost childish treble.
“Hello, there, buddy! What’s the good word?” the watchman returned cheerily.
“It isn’t very good, not for me!” The boy’s face clouded once more. “Mr. Blaisdell is going away on a sketching tour for October. I—I wish I could go with him! He’d take me but Dad won’t hear of it!”
The two listeners who had remained a little apart, saw now that he carried a small leather portfolio and a sketch book.
“An artist, the lad is!” Dennis exclaimed beneath his breath. “It’s out playing baseball he should be, and getting into a good healthy fight now and then. Look at the hollow chest and spindly legs of him!”
“Poor little cuss!” McCarty murmured as Horace Goddard with a parting word to the watchman passed them with a mere glance of well-bred inquiry. “Say, Bill, what’s that family doing to the kid? Making him learn to paint?”
The watchman had strolled up to them once more and at the question his grin broadened.
“Make him? They can’t keep him away from it! We’re great buddies, him and me, and he’s a lonesome kind of a little feller and talks to me every chance he gets. You heard what he said? This Blaisdell guy is one of the greatest painters in the country and he met the kid at Mr. Orbit’s house one day and took a fancy to him. He let Horace come to his studio and watch him work, it seems, and Horace began trying to copy him and now he’s giving him regular lessons. Going to stroll back? I take the other side of the street.”
“No, we’ll be looking in to see what arrangements Mr. Orbit has made for the funeral.” McCarty touched Dennis’ sleeve. “So long.”
“See you later.” Bill nodded and turned to cross to the opposite sidewalk and his erstwhile companions started back the way they had come.