Billy, looking at his trousers, did not see it.
“Rise, and I’ll show you,” said Bertie.
“Goodness gracious!” said Billy.
Thus discoursing, they reached Harvard Square. Not your Harvard Square, gentle reader, that place populous with careless youths and careful maidens and reticent persons with books, but one of sleeping windows and clear, cool air and few sounds; a Harvard Square of emptiness and conspicuous sparrows and milk wagons and early street-car conductors in long coats going to their breakfast; and over all this the sweetness of the arching elms.
As the gelding turned down toward Pike’s, the thin old church clock struck. “Always sounds,” said Billy, “like cambric tea.”
“Cambridge tea,” said Bertie.
“Walk close behind me,” said Billy, as they came away from the livery stable. “Then they won’t see the hole.”
Bertie did so; but the hole was seen by the street-car conductors and the milkmen, and these sympathetic hearts smiled at the sight of the marching boys, and loved them without knowing any more of them than this. They reached their building and separated.