CHAPTER XI
TOM AND ROY
Anxious that his letter should go as soon as possible, Tom went down in the elevator and was about to cross the street and post it when he ran plunk into Roy, who was waiting on the steps.
"Good night, look who's here," Roy said, in his usual friendly tone; "I might have known that you were upstairs. You've got the early bird turning green with envy."
"I always come early Saturdays," Tom said.
"I want to tell you that I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you last night, Tom," Roy spoke up. "I see now that it wasn't so bad. I guess you have a whole lot to do up in the office, and maybe you just forgot about how we always had the hill cabins. You can't do everything you want to do, gee I realize that."
"I can do anything I want to do," Tom said.
Roy looked at him as if he did not quite understand.
"Going back on people isn't the way to square things," Tom said. "You got to make things right without anybody losing anything. There's always two ways, only you've got to find the other one."
Roy did not quite understand the drift of his friend's talk, it was not always easy to follow Tom, and indeed he did not care much what Tom meant; he just wanted him to know that their friendship had not been wrecked—could not be wrecked by any freakish act of Tom's.