The most optimistic person could have found but one meritorious feature about that room; it was cheap. The house was an ugly, yellow, box-like erection, which contained a never-failing odour of boiled cabbage and onions. Phillip’s room was on the third floor, under the eaves, and was just large enough to accommodate the slim iron bedstead and three other articles of furniture. His trunk stood under the narrow dormer window and was spread with a saddle blanket, making, so he assured himself, an excellent imitation of a window-seat. He had kept three of his pictures, and these, with numerous photographs and his collection of whips and spurs and bits, ornamented the sloping walls. This evening as he climbed the dark stairway, entered the room and lighted the gas, it looked meaner and more squalid than ever, and the prospect of leaving it pleased him greatly. It was very cold up there, since a somewhat mythical furnace never sent its heat higher than the first floor. He lighted the little gas radiator beside the washstand and pulled up the chair until the crackling contrivance of stovepipe was between his knees. Then he drew forth John’s letter and opened it.
“Dear Phil” (he read)—“Where under the sun have you disappeared to? We looked for you on Sunday evening, but you didn’t show up, and so I went around to your house. There the buxom landlady professed complete ignorance of your whereabouts. You had gone; she knew nothing else, and didn’t seem to care. At the post-office they coldly refused to divulge your present address; I think they mistook me for a bill collector. Your friend Baker could give me no assistance, and so I am sending this to the Union as a last desperate resort. If you ever receive it, come around to the room. If you don’t appear before Saturday I shall place the affair in the hands of the police.
“Yours, John.”
Phillip sat for a moment in thought after finishing the note. Then he placed it back in the envelope and gravely and deliberately tore it across and across. For want of a waste-basket he dropped the pieces back of the washstand. Unlocking the trunk, he selected a quarter from a small horde and went to dinner.
John confidently expected Phillip at his rooms the following Sunday evening, and when ten o’clock came without him his perplexity became uneasiness.
“Maybe the boy’s sick, Davy,” he suggested.
David woke up from his doze and blinked.
“Sick? Phil?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t believe so. He’s probably tired of us middle-aged codgers and has found more congenial places to spend his Sunday evenings. Maybe he’s in love. I thought I saw symptoms of it before recess—an unnatural gaiety, a sort of feverish excitement.”
“You seem to know the symptoms,” laughed John. “One would almost think you’d been in love yourself at some time?”
“Once,” answered David, reaching for his pipe, which had dropped to the floor, leaving a long trail of ashes over his waistcoat and trousers, “only once, John. I was twelve. It was desperate while it lasted. She was my teacher. I discovered that if I failed at my lessons I was kept after school and that she stayed with me. After that I never knew a thing; I developed a sudden colossal ignorance that astounded her and alarmed my parents. Day after day I sat in my seat after the others were dismissed and feasted my eyes on her from behind my geography or slate. Then—” he sighed deeply—“then the natural thing happened. Fate parted us. I was taken out of her room and relegated to the next class below, which was presided over by a young man with mutton-chop whiskers and red neckties. It was an awful blow, John.”