"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public interest.
I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper, although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted, the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into Graham's drug-store.
Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour, but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store, alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the stranger.
"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this gentleman———"