“Where are they now?”
“I have stored them. I could not make up my mind to sell them.”
“What an old humbug!” thought Bernard, as he heard the professor’s statements in the security of the alcove.
“May I ask your age, Professor Puffer?”
Puffer hesitated, and finally answered, “I am forty-five.”
Walter Cunningham would have been surprised if he had put any confidence in the professor’s statements, as he looked at least ten years older.
“I asked because I am a young man, and though you are doubtless a man from whom I should gain instruction, I am in doubt as to whether your age would not be too great to make you a congenial companion.”
“My dear Mr. Cunningham,” said the professor with a genial smile, “I am not surprised to hear you say so. Forty-five no doubt seems very old to you, but I assure you I have a young heart and my company is prized by a great many young people. Why, only recently I was engaged as companion for a boy of sixteen.”
“Indeed! What was his name?”
“Bernard Brooks.”