“All right. Get your books together and sit down. We’ll go over the lesson together. I suppose you’ll have about five pages more to-morrow, eh?” Dan brought his chair around beside Gerald’s. “This doesn’t look awfully difficult. I don’t believe you really get your mind on it, Gerald. Here, try this one and see how it goes. While you’re doing it I’ll glance through my French.”
They were both studying very hard when, some twenty minutes later, there came a knock at the door.
“Come,” called Dan, darting an apprehensive glance at his companion. The door opened and in walked Kilts. The boys jumped to their feet.
“Good evening,” said Dan. “Will you sit down, sir?”
Kilts was tall and lean, his clean-shaven face surmounted by an unruly shock of iron-gray hair. His eyes—they might have been gray or blue—were deeply set and sharp as two gimlets. In age he was about fifty. He still wore his queer old plaid ulster, without which he was seldom seen abroad, no matter the season, and carried his cloth hat and his stick in his hand. He answered Dan’s greeting, bowed to Gerald and took the chair offered, settling his stick across his knees and laying his hat carefully atop. Then with a glance about the room he smoothed one lean cheek with his hand and fixed his gaze on Dan.
“I’m not wanting to be here, Vinton,” he said gravely but kindly. “But I’ve got a question to ask you. I saw you at the station awhile ago, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dan.
“You’d been away?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Without permission?”