"That sounds like you," said Louis, gently pulling his beard.
"Tell me, partner," said Arthur lightly, "would you recognize me with whiskers?"
"Never. There is nothing about you that reminds me of that boy who ran away. Just think, it's ten years, and how we all change in ten years. But say, what adventures you must have had! I've got to hear the whole story, mind, from the first chapter to the last. You are to come over to the house two nights in a week, to the old room, you remember, and unfold the secrets of ten years. Haven't you had a lot of them?"
"A car-load, and of every kind. In the mines and forests, on the desert, lost in the mountains, hunting and fishing and prospecting; not to mention love adventures of the tenderest sort. I feel pleasant to think of telling you my latest adventures in the old room, where I used to curl you up with fright——"
"Over stories of witches and fairies," cried Louis, "when I would crawl up your back as we lay in bed, and shiver while I begged you to go on. And the room is just the same, for all the new things have the old pattern. I felt you would come back some day with a bag of real stories to be told in the same dear old place."
"Real enough surely," said Arthur with a deep sigh, "and I hope they may not tire you in the telling. Mother ... tells me that you are going to be a priest. Is that true?"
"As far as I can see now, yes. But one is never certain."
"Then I hope you will be one of the Monsignor's stamp. That man is surely a man of God."
"Not a doubt of it," said Louis, taking his hat to go.
"One thing," said Arthur as he took his hand and detained him. He was hungry for loving intimacy with this fine lad, and stammered in his words. "We are to be the same ... brothers ... that we were long ago!"