“Oh, see here now,” said the foppish dragoon, “this is most unforgiving of you, ’pon my soul it is.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Hyde, whose disappointment was better tempered, but equally keen. “We had all but counted upon you.” He studied George for a moment, and then added: “But you can come and dine with us now and then, can you not? We shall be pleased to see you at any time.”
At any other time George might have consented to accept their hospitality out of sheer good nature. But now he somehow instinctively drew back. It may have been that his first impression of the two men was still strong upon him; or it may have been something else. He did not, however, pause to work it out; but with a bow and a polite wave of the hand, he said:
“You are very kind. Some other time, perhaps; but not to-night.”
And with that he swung along up Broadway, leaving them standing gazing after him.
CHAPTER X
SHOWS HOW WASHINGTON CAME TO NEW YORK
When George Prentiss told Major Hyde and Captain Henderson that he would remain in New York until Washington arrived with the army from Boston, he had not reckoned with the uncertainties of the service.
That very evening he was called upon to board a swift-sailing ship to New London, there to deliver certain important writings to the officer in command of that division of the army which was expected to have already reached that point. This duty the young New Englander performed with the promptness native to him; and, under orders of the authorities at New London, he rode with other dispatches to Washington at Norwich.
As he dismounted from his horse before the commander-in-chief’s headquarters, he was greeted with a hearty:
“What! do we see you again, old chap? We thought we’d lost you for a week or more.”