V
He awoke at seven, and looked in upon Hood, who lay sprawled upon his bed reading one of the battered volumes of Borrow he carried in his bag.
“Get your tub, son; I’ve had mine and came back to bed to let you have your sleep out. Marvellous man—Borrow. Spring’s the time to read him. We’ll have some breakfast and go out and see what the merry old world has to offer.”
With nice calculation he tossed the book into the open bag on the further side of the room, rose, and stretched himself. Deering stifled an impulse to scoff at his silk pajamas as hardly an appropriate sleeping garb for one who professed to have taken vows of poverty. Hood noted his glance.
“Found these in some nabob’s house at Bar Harbor last fall. Went up in November, after all the folks had gone, to have a look at the steely blue ocean; camped in a big cottage for a few days. Found a drawer full of these things and took the pink ones. Wrote my thanks on the villa’s stationery and pinned ’em to the fireplace. I hate to admit it, son, but I verily believe I could stand a little breakfast.”
“We’re going out for breakfast,” Deering remarked with affected carelessness. “I accepted an invitation for you last night. A girl up there at the bungalow asked me; I told her about you, and she seemed willing to stand for it.”
“The thought pleases me! You are certainly doing well, my boy!” Hood replied, dancing about on one foot as he drew a sock on the other.
He explained that a man should never sit down while dressing; that the exercise he got in balancing himself was of the greatest value as a stimulus to the circulation.