His room was on the second floor, and though hotel chambers are in general--at any rate, in country towns--the reverse of pleasant or comfortable, this room looked both. There was an open fire in the grate which blazed pleasantly. Before the fire a cosy armchair was drawn up. Next to it was a table covered with books. Two or three pictures hung on the walls, and books and pictures do a great deal to give a homelike appearance to an apartment.
“You look very comfortable here, Mr. Barclay,” said Walter.
“Yes, I have made the room pleasant. The books and pictures I brought with me, and the armchair I bought in the village. I am sensitive to cold, and so of late, as the weather has become colder, I have had a fire lighted just before I come home in the afternoon.”
“Have you any scholars in Latin?” asked Walter, seeing a copy of “Cæsar’s Commentaries” on the table.
“One--John Wall, the son of General Wall, the most prominent man in Portville.”
“I have already made the young gentleman’s acquaintance,” said Walter, smiling.
“Indeed!” returned Allen Barclay, in surprise.
“I met him in the stage. I don’t think we were either of us very favorably impressed with the other.”
Here he gave a brief account of the altercation between himself and John.
“What you say does not surprise me,” said the teacher. “John is a thoroughly selfish, disagreeable boy, with a very lofty idea of himself and his position as the son of a rich man. He considers himself entitled to the best of everything. I am glad you did not give way to him.”