And he had been specially interested in the Colonel—where he was going and what he was going to do.
Now that the boys, taking time to think about it, happened on that thought, it was rather funny what an amount of interest the old fellow had taken in trivial things concerning their beloved Colonel. But it had gone over the boys' heads because they were so accustomed to having every one think that the Colonel was about the whole thing, and to hearing every one talk about him, that the strange interest of the second mate did not raise a question in their minds.
They had merely felt the flattered importance that they always felt about anything and everything concerning the truly great and simple-minded man whom they were so proud to know and to be with.
For Colonel Bright was a truly great man. They were to learn that fact more and more as time went on, and as they saw him tried by circumstances that could only bring out the best and noblest in men. They saw troubled, perplexed, wounded and distressed. It was their great good fortune to feel that there were times when this great man really needed their boyish but deeply loyal and loving support. It was just as well that the future, so terrible and so bloodstained, was hidden from their young eyes.
It is enough for this story that already the boys recognized the gallant, simple courage and tenderness of the Colonel; enough that all their lives they were to be strengthened and ennobled by the example of his straightforward everyday life. When Porky and Beany had themselves become great men, when, in their turn, boys looked up to them with admiration and love, they learned to look back with boundless gratitude to the fate that had led them, through the Boy Scouts, into the friendship of Colonel Bright.
A faint inkling of this, passed through the minds of the twins as they sat waiting for the Colonel to begin his story. And each knew that the other felt it.
The Colonel regarded the boys with twinkling eyes.
"Sort of surprising, isn't it?" he said. "Not that this affair would ever have come into your scheme of things at all, but for one thing. I have got you over here, and in some ways it is positively the worst fool thing I ever pulled off—taking the responsibility of two kids like you, at a time like this."
"But, Colonel, please!" interrupted Porky. "Don't think I am fresh, but just this once, while there is no one around, and no one will know we are lacking in respect to you, sir, as a superior, please, Colonel, let me tell you—"
"Go on," said the Colonel.