3
As he emerged from the tent sudden noises assailed his ears. A line of young men danced in lock step, doing a serpentine from one areaway to another, and waving and shouting merrily as they passed. There was still the singing, somewhere; one of the songs of Albert Chevalier, who had not then been forgotten. He heard vaguely, with half an ear, the enthusiastic outburst of sound on the final line:
“Missie 'Enry 'Awkins is a first-class nyme!”
So it was a day of celebration! He had forgotten that it would be. But of course! Even the Chinese were at it; he could hear one of their flageolets wailing, and, more faintly, stringed instruments.
He walked directly to the building occupied by the Boatwrights; sent in his card to Mr. Doane.
He was shown into a little cubicle of a room. Here was the huge man, rising from an absurdly small work table that had been crowded in by the window, between the wall and the foot of the bed. He was writing, apparently, a long letter.
Brachey, an odd figure to Doane's eyes, in his well-made suit and stiff white collar, stood on the sill, as rigid as a soldier at attent ion.
“I am interrupting you,” he said, almost curtly,
For the first time Griggsby Doane caught a glimpse of the man Brachey behind that all but forbidding front; and he hesitated, turning for a moment, stacking his papers together, and with a glance at the open window laying a book across them.
He had said, kindly enough, “Oh, no, indeed! Come right in.” But his thoughts were afield, or else he was busily, quickly, rearranging them.