Laurie listened and looked on with only perfunctory interest. It wasn’t any use, he decided. Learning Pemberton’s stuff and teaching it to Kewpie was beyond his abilities. Besides, when he came to think about it, it didn’t seem quite fair. It was too much like stealing another fellow’s patent. Of course there wasn’t more than one chance in ten that Kewpie would progress to the stage where he might burst on the Hillman’s baseball firmament as a rival to Pemberton, but ... just the same.... The next time Pemberton let the ball go Laurie picked it up and dropped it in his pocket.
The next day, Sunday, saw Ned and Laurie walking toward the Widow Deane’s shortly after dinner was over. It had become a custom to go for a walk on Sunday afternoons, when the weather was gracious, with Polly and Mae and, sometimes, Bob Starling or some of the other fellows. To-day, however, there were indications that a late dinner was still going on at the Starlings’, and the twins didn’t stop for Bob. It had rained during the night but a warm sun had long since removed all signs of it. Along the streets bordering School Park doors and windows were open to the spring-like air. In the park the few benches were occupied, and, beyond, in the paved yard of the high school, some small youths were indulging somewhat noisily in an amusement suspiciously like baseball. Of course it couldn’t be baseball, as Laurie pointed out, since the town laws sternly forbade that game on Sundays. At the further corner of Pine Street a small white house with faded brown shutters stood sedately behind a leafless and overgrown hedge of lilac. The twins viewed the house with new interest, for it was there that Miss Comfort lived. Ned thought that through a gap in the hedge he had glimpsed a face behind one of the front windows.
“Reckon this is her last Sunday in the old home,” observed Ned. It sounded flippant, and probably he had meant that it should, but inside him he felt very sorry for the little old lady. It was not much of a house, as houses went even in Orstead, but it was home to Miss Comfort, and Ned suddenly felt the pathos of the impending departure.
Laurie grunted assent as they turned the corner toward the little blue painted shop. “Guess we aren’t going to hear from the Goop,” he said. “It’s three days now.”
“We—ell, he might be away or something,” answered Ned.
“I don’t believe so,” said Laurie. “He didn’t answer Miss Comfort’s letter, and I guess he isn’t going to answer our telegram. The old skinflint,” he added as an afterthought.
CHAPTER IX
THE AFTERNOON CALL
“Which way?” asked Ned as, a few minutes later, they went through the gate.