Humphrey Meadowcroft spoke with sincerity. Three months earlier, he had come to live with his sister in South Paulding, shortly after the death of her husband, and Tommy Finnemore had been his first caller and was now practically his only acquaintance among the village people. The boy came often, being, in spite of moments of diffidence, pretended or otherwise, well assured of a warm welcome; but Meadowcroft realized that his first call had meant real initiative and a special effort as well as generous friendliness; for the big, handsome house which stood on the village street with gardens behind had no reputation for hospitality. Mrs. Phillips had lived here in her husband’s old home for more than a dozen years, but in all that time she had had nothing to do with the people or the life of the village.
The boy, who was exceedingly lank and awkward, though in rather picturesque fashion, colored so deeply that his many and conspicuous freckles merged and were lost in the flush that extended to the roots of his ragged fringe of sandy-brown hair. His eyes fell upon his long, lean fingers, which looked grimy, indeed, though not because he had just come from school. They were badly stained with acids of various sorts and dates.
“Well, you see you’re interested in my magic; you really seem to like to hear about it,” he returned ingenuously. “You never change the subject, and you let me tell all about the beginning of a trick even if it doesn’t have any end, you know. Hardly anybody else I know really and truly cares. Nobody does except Bouncing Bet.”
“Ah, then it’s a sort of utilitarian regard you have for your friends, Tommy Finnemore?”
Tommy wasn’t given to blushing, but he colored again.
“O, I should like to come anyhow,” he declared. “I like your talk just as much as you like my magic—I mean, of course, I like it a lot better. There’s more to it. And I—goodness, but I’m mighty glad to be back here after being down in Jersey. Everybody there seemed so noisy and so—so confounded healthy.”
Meadowcroft laughed as he caught the implication. His left leg and arm were paralyzed, the arm being shrunken also, and he spent the greater part of his time in a large padded wheel-chair. A pair of crutches stood in a corner. Tommy had never seen Mr. Meadowcroft resort to them, though it was said that he took daily exercise in a part of the garden which had been enclosed by high brick walls since he had come to South Paulding.
“That’s rather a left-hander, but it comes from the right spot, Tommy!” Meadowcroft said. And Tommy decided to try another chair. The room was very large, with chairs and sofas and couches galore, and Mr. Meadowcroft never minded his progress from one to another. For himself, he always sat by one of the side windows, in a position where he could also see all that passed in the street below the front windows. He had a handsome, refined, rather worn face, smooth-shaven, with brilliant gray eyes and thick dark hair lightly sprinkled with gray. His dress and manner were more elegant than anything Tommy or, in fact, South Paulding had ever known before. Mr. Phillips had been a man of wealth but plain and brusque, and might have been taken at any time for one of the operatives of his factory at Paulding.
As Tommy vainly strove to amend his statement so that it would indicate that he liked Mr. Meadowcroft even better and admired him exactly as much as if he had the full use of both hands and feet, it came to him that his other friend would have expressed the meaning without awkwardness.
“Now, Bouncing Bet”—he began, but stopped short, partly because he hardly knew what he was about to say, but rather because Mr. Meadowcroft suddenly bent his brows and fixed his eyes sharply upon him.