"You're always thinking of him," said Frank. "I don't believe he's half as bad as you try to make him out. No, I didn't see him there, but I did see him on the ice and he saw the skates, for I saw him stop and look at them."
"Well, you can bet he knows something about them."
"I don't believe it," said Frank. "He couldn't be so contemptible."
At supper Frank confided his loss to David.
"I've got no luck at all. I shouldn't have let them leave my hands," said Frank in a passion of regret. "Serves me right."
"It is too bad, that's a fact," returned David. "But you must not blame yourself. It might have happened to any one. You couldn't keep them on your feet nor in your hands all the time. Don't worry about them. They may turn up, and if they don't you'll win anyway."
But Frank was inconsolable. He picked the old skates up from the corner where he had thrown them. They were as heavy as lead. He threw them down again almost discouraged, and all of David's cheerful words seemed to give him no help. He retired early, but had a bad night of it, dreaming that he was left far behind and that the crowd which watched him in the race yelled and jeered at him when he crossed the line minutes after the winner.
He felt better next morning, and still better when at about ten o'clock a big grey motor car rolled through the Queen's gate and set down at the head of the yard none other than his father and mother and Colonel Powers who had come up for the day. The Colonel had run up from New York in his big six-cylinder "Crescent," and had stopped long enough at Milton to pick up the Armstrong family. Perhaps the parents only happened there on that day, but perhaps David's letter had something to do with it. Anyway, there they were. There was a reception in Frank's room, and during it the loss of the skates came out.
"They may turn up yet," said Colonel Powers, "but perhaps it won't make such a difference as you think."