'I can manage. Get some help from one of the students. And Gertie Wombast is usually available—— Oh, say; how about the old man? Did you tell him what's what?'
Henry's burning eyes stared out of that white face. Suddenly—so suddenly that Humphrey himself started—he sprang up, cried out; 'No! No! No!' and rushed into his bedroom, slamming the door after him.
Humphrey looked soberly at the door, shook his head, filled his pipe.
That 'No! No! No!' still rang in his ears It was a cry of pain.
Humphrey had suffered; but he had never known a turbulence of the sort that every now and then seemed to tear Henry to pieces.
'Must be fierce,' he thought. 'But it works up as well as down. Runs to extremes. Creative faculty, I suppose. Well, he's got it—that's all. And he's only a kid. Thing to do's to stand by and try to steady him up a little when he comes out of it.'
And the philosophical Humphrey went to bed.
6
At noon, no word had come from Uncle Arthur. Henry, all the morning, had flitted back and forth between McGibbon's rear office and the telegraph office in the 'depot.'
At twelve-thirty, they sent a peremptory message, demanding a reply by three o'clock. An ultimatum.