"No, I do not," said Roderick heartily. "Can't you make Lawyer Ed go to the Holy Land this spring? I'll do anything to help him go. He needs a rest."
J. P. Thornton looked at the young man smiling reminiscently. He was recalling the night when two young men gave up that very trip and Lawyer Ed had laughingly declared he would go some day even if he had to wait till little Roderick grew up. "And little the boy knows," said Mr. Thornton to himself, "just how much Ed gave up that time."
"Well," he said aloud, "this is surely poetic justice."
"What is?" asked Roderick puzzled. But J. P. would not explain. "We'll just make him go," he declared. "You stand behind me, Rod, and don't let him get back to work, and I'll get him off."
It was not entirely the old boyish desire to go on the long-looked-for trip with his friend that was at the bottom of Mr. Thornton's anxiety to get away. He could not help seeing that Ed needed a rest and needed it very badly. Archie Blair aroused his fears further. For one evening Lawyer Ed did an altogether unprecedented thing and went home to bed early. Mrs. Hepburn, his sister, was so amazed over such a piece of conduct on her brother's part, that she called at the doctor's office the next day to ask if he thought there was anything wrong with Ed's heart.
Doctor Blair laughed long and loud over the question, putting the lady's fears at rest.
"No, I don't think any one in Algonquin would admit there was anything astray with Ed's heart, Mary," he said. "But his head might be vastly improved by putting a little common sense into it regarding eating and sleeping. He's been going too hard for about twenty-five years and he's tired, that's all. But J. P.'s going to get him off this time, all right, and the change is just what he needs."
He spoke to J. P. about it, and the two determined that they would make all preparations to start for the Holy Land in July and if Ed had to be bound and gagged until the steamer sailed, they would certainly see that he went.
Lawyer Ed consented with the greatest enthusiasm. Of course he would go. He really believed he had enough money saved up, and Roderick was doing everything, anyway, and he could just start off for a forty years wandering in the wilderness if J. P. would go with him.
The whole town became quite excited when Mrs. Hepburn announced at a tea given by Mrs. Captain Willoughby that her brother and J. P. Thornton were really and truly, even should Algonquin go up in flames the day before, going to sail from Montreal sometime in July for foreign parts. There was a great deal of running to and from the Thornton and Brians homes, and a tremendous amount of talking and advising. And the only topic of conversation for weeks, in the town, was the Holy Land, and the question which greeted a new-comer invariably was, "Did you hear that Lawyer Ed and J. P. have really decided to go?"