“Nary one,” was his laconic reply.
“Humph! Heard anything about him?”
Mr. Price moistened his broom in a bucket of water. “I see Tim Kelley on my way down street,” he said. “Tim said he run afoul of Laban along about ten last night. Said he cal'lated Labe was on his way. He was singin' 'Hyannis on the Cape' and so Tim figgered he'd got a pretty fair start already.”
The captain shook his head. “Tut, tut, tut!” he muttered. “Well, that means I'll have to do office work for the next week or so. Humph! I declare it's too bad just now when I was countin' on him to—” He did not finish the sentence, but instead turned to his grandson and said: “Al, why don't you look around the hardware store here while I open the mail and the safe. If there's anything you see you don't understand Issy'll tell you about it.”
He went into the office. Albert sauntered listlessly to the window and looked out. So far as not understanding anything in the shop was concerned he was quite willing to remain in ignorance. It did not interest him in the least. A moment later he felt a touch on his elbow. He turned, to find Mr. Price standing beside him.
“I'm all ready to tell you about it now,” volunteered the unsmiling Issy. “Sweepin's all finished up.”
Albert was amused. “I guess I can get along,” he said.
“Don't worry.”
“I ain't worried none. I don't believe in worryin'; worryin' don't do folks no good, the way I look at it. But long's Cap'n Lote wants me to tell you about the hardware I'd ruther do it now, than any time. Henry Cahoon's team'll be here for a load of lath in about ten minutes or so, and then I'll have to leave you. This here's the shelf where we keep the butts—hinges, you understand. Brass along here, and iron here. Got quite a stock, ain't we.”
He took the visitor's arm in his mighty paw and led him from shelves to drawers and from drawers to boxes, talking all the time, so the boy thought, “like a catalogue.” Albert tried gently to break away several times and yawned often, but yawns and hints were quite lost on his guide, who was intent only upon the business—and victim—in hand. At the window looking across toward the main road Albert paused longest. There was a girl in sight—she looked, at that distance, as if she might be a rather pretty girl—and the young man was languidly interested. He had recently made the discovery that pretty girls may be quite interesting; and, moreover, one or two of them whom he had met at the school dances—when the young ladies from the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had come over, duly guarded and chaperoned, to one-step and fox-trot with the young gentlemen of the school—one or two of these young ladies had intimated a certain interest in him. So the feminine possibility across the road attracted his notice—only slightly, of course; the sophisticated metropolitan notice is not easily aroused—but still, slightly.