“Why, my boy, you’re lookin’ as solemn as an owl, and even young Mr. Fluff isn’t as cheerful as when I saw him last! What’s the matter? Didn’t the uniform fit?”
“Oh, yes, sir, and it’s beautiful—beautiful; and I sha’n’t be able to wear it because I’ve got to go away.”
Then a particularly big sob came into Benny’s throat, and he found it impossible to speak further.
“Go away?” Mr. Bradford repeated in surprise, and turning to the others he asked, “What does the lad mean?”
It was proper Tom Downey should act as spokesman, and, recognizing this fact, he began the necessary explanations by handing the visitor the letter which had caused so much sorrow at the station.
“Take off your overcoat, and make yourself comfortable here by the table while you read this; then you’ll know what Benny means. But he goes a little too far when he says he’s got to leave, for we haven’t settled the question yet, and since you’re here, if the rest of the crew are willing, I go in for leavin’ it to you. We want him to stay; yet are afraid of doin’ what mightn’t be to his best interests, therefore it puts us in a bad fix, so far as makin’ up our minds is concerned.”
Mr. Bradford looked thoroughly mystified, as he had good cause for being, but he did as the speaker had suggested, in the way of making himself comfortable, and then read the letter from Mr. Andrew Foster, studying it so long that Benny began to fear perhaps he did not wish to venture an opinion on the subject.
Meanwhile the life savers seated themselves around him, each man looking inquiringly, eagerly, at the one whom they had thus suddenly decided should be the judge.
Finally Mr. Bradford looked up from the paper toward Benny and asked: