Regie sat sorting the neckties, putting the worn ones, and the ones he did not like, at the bottom of the box, you may be sure. Now and then he would stop to watch the four Brooks' boys, who were playing tennis in front of their cottage, and then it seemed as though he could not stand keeping still another moment; but he knew he must, and that word must is a very tyrannical and exacting little master. Presently the waggon from the store at Atlanticville, where they sold everything, from kerosene oil to shoe-strings, drove up and stopped; and a little errand boy, no larger than Regie, jumped down and pulled a basket out from the back. The basket was filled with groceries, and was so very heavy that the boy had to slip the handle way up to his elbow, so that he could rest part of its weight on his hip, as he carried it into the Brooks's kitchen.
When he came out again he stopped to watch the little tennis players with such a wistful look on his thin face, while the old horse, as overworked as his child-driver, improved the opportunity for a hurried browsing on the Fairfax terrace.
“What a difference!” thought Regie, noting the contrast between the boys in knickerbockers and polo caps and this shabby little stranger. “I wonder why some boys have to wear themselves out trudging round with dinners for other boys who do nothing but have a good time the whole summer long!”
In another moment the little fellow jumped into his waggon, and, as if to make up for lost time, jerked the old horse into a bobbing sort of gait, which was something better than a walk and yet could not honestly be called a trot Then Reginald sat dreaming and looking out to sea. Perhaps he was thinking of a time when there might be a better order of things, not exactly of a better world,—that blue ocean and cloud-flecked sky were about as beautiful as anything could be—but of a time when the sins and misfortunes of the fathers should no longer be visited upon the children, and when everyone should have an equal chance. At any rate his thoughts were far away from anything about him, and Harry and Nan came nearer and nearer, without his ever seeing them, and he only knew they were there when Nan rushed up in front of him and said “Boo!” as if to frighten him out of his reverie.
“Why, I did not see you at all!” exclaimed Regie.
“Of course you didn't; you were looking right over our heads,” said Harry, seating himself on the edge of the piazza, and straightway beginning to whittle on a block, which was fast being converted into a boat hull. “You seem to be able to see farther than anyone I know of,” he added. “You looked then as though you were staring right round the world and up the other side.” Reginald blushed a little. Somehow or other, in the presence of matter-of-fact Harry, he always felt ashamed of this dreaming habit of his.
“We're awful sorry you're going,” said Nan. “It's so dull for bodyguards when there's no king to care for.”