“Oh, I wouldn’t cut out Temple Camp,” he exclaimed. “I’d just take a summer off to get this new camp started.”
I just shook my head. I’d give a good deal to have his fine spirit and energy.
CHAPTER IV—THE NEW VENTURE
I wish not to intrude into this narrative. Of the extraordinary adventures which I am now to record, Tom was unquestionably the hero. But since I am a trustee of the new camp and was present there in the exciting season of its formation, I suppose I am the logical one to group these remarkable incidents into a story. As for Tom, he cannot remain seated long enough to write a letter.
You must bear with me a little time while I tell briefly the somewhat humdrum details incident to the launching of this enterprise. Yet even here was a spice of mystery. I went up that very evening to see our town’s most benevolent and distinguished citizen, Mr. John Temple. I know him, as every one in town knows him; perhaps a little better than some, for I have met him on the golf course. He is none of your open-handed story book philanthropists, tossing princely sums here and there, one of those scout angels who rewards the juvenile hero with a thousand dollars for a brave deed. But he is a very rich man, and a vastly generous one. I have always believed that the conspicuous success of Temple Camp is to be ascribed, not only to his liberal endowment of it, but to his wise and painstaking oversight. It is his pet and his pride.
Well, I went up to see him and on my way there a rather singular thing happened. Scarcely had I reached the first corner when I was accosted by a man whom I thought to be the same one that I had noticed loitering (or at least pausing) in front of my house during Tom’s call. To this day, I do not know for a certainty whether or not he was the same man. If he was, he must have put on an overcoat in the interval. Notwithstanding his scraggly beard he appeared rather more presentable than the man I had noticed near Tom’s car. Yet I thought he was the same man.
Be that as it might, he addressed me by name and asked me if I knew whether the Adirondack camp property, as he called it, had been sold.
“May I ask who you are?” I said with intentional curtness.
As I did not pause he fell in step with me. “No offense,” he said. “I heard young Mr. Slade was interested in buying it. I’d like to get a job up that way; my health ain’t so good.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be much of a recommendation,” I said rather coldly. “And what makes you think that I should know anything about it?”