“I’m sure.” She stepped up to Grant and drew the boy’s face down to hers. “Good-bye, dear; be a good boy,” she whispered, and Wilson waved kisses to her as the motor sped down the road.
Linder took his departure soon after, and Grant was surprised to find himself almost embarrassed in the presence of his little guest. The embarrassment, however, was all on his side. Wilson was greatly interested in the strange things in the house, and investigated them with the romantic thoroughness of his years. Grant placed a collection of war trophies that had no more fight in them at the child’s disposal, and he played about until it was time to go to bed.
Where to start on the bedtime preparations was a puzzle, but Wilson himself came to Grant’s aid with explicit instructions about buttons and pins. Grant fervently hoped the boy would be able to reverse the process in the morning, otherwise—
Suddenly, with a little dexterous movement, the child divested himself of all his clothing, and rushed into a far corner.
“You have to catch me now,” he shouted in high glee. “One, two—”
Evidently it was a game, and Grant entered into the spirit of it, finally running Wilson to earth on the farthest corner of the kitchen table. To adjust the pyjamas was, as Grant confessed, a bigger job than harnessing a four-horse team, but at length it was completed.
“You must hear my prayer, Uncle Man-on-the-Hill,” said the boy. “You have to sit down in a chair.”
Grant sat down and with a strange mixture of emotions drew the little chap between his knees as he listened to the long-forgotten prattle. He felt his fingers running through Wilson’s hair as other fingers, now long, long turned to dust, had once run through his....
At the third line the boy stopped. “You have to tell me now,” he prompted.
“But I can’t, Willie; I have forgotten.”