"What is—" David began, and his companion replied glibly:
"Layovers for meddlers and crutches for lame ducks."
And David subsided into giggles, for it was understood that this remark was extremely humorous.
After that they went to dinner with a gentleman who wore a long black coat and no shirt; at least, David could not see any shirt. Dr. Lavendar called him Bishop, and they talked a great deal about uninteresting things. David only spoke twice: His host took occasion to remark that he did not finish all his mashed potato—"Some poor child would be glad of what you waste," said the Bishop. To which David replied, "If I ate it, what then, for the poor child?" And the gentleman with no shirt said in a grave aside to Dr. Lavendar that the present generation was inclined to pertness. His second remark was made when the clergymen pushed their chairs back from the table. But David sat still. "We haven't had the ice-cream yet," he objected, gently. "Hush! Hush!" said Dr. Lavendar. And the gentleman laughed very hard, and said that he had to send all his ice-cream to the heathen. David, reddening, looked at him in stolid silence. In the afternoon there was a pause; they went to church, and listened to another gentleman, who talked a long, long time. Sometimes David sighed, but he kept pretty quiet, considering. After the talk was over, Dr. Lavendar did not seem anxious to get away. David twitched his sleeve once or twice to indicate his own readiness, but it appeared that Dr. Lavendar preferred to speak to the talking gentleman. And the talking gentleman patted David's head and said:
"And what do you think of foreign missions, my little boy?"
David did not answer, but he moved his head from under the large white hand.
"You were very good and quiet," said the talking gentleman. "I saw you, down in the pew with Dr. Lavendar. And I was very much complimented; you never went to sleep." "I couldn't," said David, briefly; "the seats are too hard." The talking gentleman laughed a little, and you might have thought Dr. Lavendar skipped with his eye;—at any rate, he laughed.
"They don't always tell us why they keep awake," he said. And the talking gentleman didn't laugh any more.
At last, however, they stopped wasting time, and took up their round of dissipation again. They went to see Liberty Bell; then they had supper at a marble-topped table, in a room as big as a church! "Ice-cream, suh?" suggested a waiter, and David said "Yes!" Dr. Lavendar looked doubtful, but David had no doubts. Yet, half-way through that pink and white and brown mound on his saucer, he sighed, and opened and shut his eyes as if greatly fatigued.
"Finished?" Dr. Lavendar asked.