“Well, if it’s a lark, you’re mighty mean not to let a chap into it.”
“It isn’t a lark at all. By!”
Wayne hurried out and Paddy grumblingly closed the door and watched him from the window.
“He’s mighty secret-like, I’m thinking, and mighty hurried. I haven’t seen him move so fast since he came. Must be something important. Wish I knew, bad cess to him!”
Wayne trudged off up the village road and soon found the boarding house with the “cat-colored roof.” Gray’s name adorned a door on the second floor, and Wayne’s knock elicited, after a moment, a faint “Come in!” The room was a cheerful one with four big windows, but the furnishings were tattered and worn and the walls were almost bare of pictures. The floor was partly covered by a threadbare ingrain rug and the green leather on the student desk in the center was full of holes and spots. The boy whom Wayne had seen in the principal’s office arose from a chair at the desk as Wayne entered, and a half-written letter before him told its own story. Gray’s eyes were suspiciously red and the lad looked embarrassed and ill at ease. Wayne, with a sudden recollection of Professor Wheeler’s advice, plunged at once into the subject of his visit.
“You’re Carl Gray, aren’t you? Well, my name’s Gordon; I’m in the upper middle. I happened to be in Wheeler’s outer office when you were in there. The door was partly open and I couldn’t help hearing what was said, and—and I’m awfully sorry, of course. But you see it wasn’t my fault.”
“I’m sorry you heard it,” answered Gray, looking piteously embarrassed; “but of course you—it wasn’t your fault.”
“No—was it?” asked Wayne eagerly. “So I thought that perhaps I could help you, and—” He stepped forward and placed the money on the table. “There’s eleven dollars there. I couldn’t get hold of any more, but you said you had a dollar, you know, so perhaps that’ll be enough.” Gray looked helplessly from Wayne to the money and back again. Once he opened his mouth, but, as he apparently could find no words, Wayne went on: “I haven’t a mother myself, you see—she died when I was just a youngster—but if I had I’d feel as you do about the bill; and of course Professor Wheeler won’t send it to her if you pay this money to Porter to-day and tell him about it.”
“But I don’t see why—why you should lend me this,” said Gray, at length. “You don’t know me and—and I can’t pay you for a good while. I don’t get much of an allowance, and——”
“I know,” replied Wayne cheerfully. “Fifty cents a week. But pay me back when you can; I’m in no hurry. And—and you might come and see me sometime; I room in Bradley—No. 15.”