"I wouldn't stay if I'm not wanted," he said; "I'll say good night."
No one answered him, and he went forth into the night.
He had been put out of the tenement where he had once lived with his poor mother, he had been put out of school as a young boy, and he had been put out of the Public Library once; so he was not unaccustomed to being put out. Down near the station he climbed the steps of Wop Harry's lunch wagon and had a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then he went home—if one might call it home....
CHAPTER IX
ROY'S NATURE
Roy Blakeley was a scout of the scouts, and no sooner had he got away from the atmosphere of resentment and disappointment which pervaded the troop room, then he began to feel sorry for what he had said. The picture of Tom picking up his hat and going forth into the night and to his poor home, lingered in Roy's mind and he lay awake half the night thinking of it.
He had no explanation of Tom's singular act, except the very plausible one that Tom had lost his former lively interest in the troop, even so much as to have forgotten about those three cabins to which they had always seemed to have a prior right; which had been like home to them in the summertime.
When you look through green glass everything is green, and now Roy thought he could remember many little instances of Tom's waning interest in the troop. Naturally enough, Roy thought, these scout games and preparations for camping seemed tame enough to one who had gone to France and fought in the trenches. Tom was older now, not only in years but in experience, and was it any wonder that his interest in "the kids" should be less keen?