It was a bright, sharp morning, without a cloud in the sky. The air had a clean crispness which went to the head like wine. The streets were thronged and noisy. Heavy trucks rolled past the pair like batteries moving into action; the Elevated thundered overhead with its rumbling screech. The teamsters shouted profanely at their straining horses; a fat policeman at the crowded crossing waved his arms like semaphores, now holding up the traffic and again with commanding gesture sweeping it along. The shrill voices of the newsboys rang out in mechanical iteration of the leading sensations of the morning journals.
"Oh," cried Tab, as they walked briskly up State Street, "how good it is, isn't it, Jacko?"
Jack was too much absorbed in the interview before him to do more than nod mechanically. He could not at the moment bring himself up to the gay mood of his friend.
"There's no place like it after all," Jerry ran on, his honest, homely face aglow with delight. "My word, you may talk about Italy and all the rest of it till the crack of doom, but they can't hold a candle to good old Boston! Blest if this isn't the best part of the whole cruise!"
"Think so, do you?" asked Jack dryly. "It's funny, but the very reverse was in my head. What the deuce," he burst out, "what the deuce am I going to tell the President anyway?"
"Oh, just give him the yarn off the reel," returned Tab, as if it were all the simplest thing in the world. "You've got the log with you, and—I say, do look at those pigeons! Aren't they jolly! Come, brace up!"
"Oh, yes," said Jack. "Brace up, of course—in the very mouth of the lion's lair. Here's the building,—we're just about seventy feet under Uncle Randolph's den. Brace up! The very thing, of course! So glad you suggested it!"
"Now, Jacko," protested Jerry, "you mustn't take things this way. Do put some spirit into it. I'll leave you here; but if you want, I'll face the music with you."
"No, thank you," his friend said gravely; "I'll take the medicine alone."