Presently his mood changed; he began to blame himself for his idleness, and to talk about his mother. He told Paul that he had decided to get a good job in the fall, and work hard.
“I’m a lot more serious than anyone thinks, let me tell you,” he remarked gravely. “I like fun, but I’m not like the rest of those chumps you saw up at Allenboro. They think they know me—but they don’t. They only see one side—so does everyone else. But I’ll show ’em. One of these days I’ll be a nice, respectable—Mayor, with three chins, and a gold watch-chain.” This fancy sent him off into a fit of amusement. His humors changed so rapidly from melancholy to gaiety that there was no way of being sure that he was not joking when he seemed grave, and serious when he was laughing; but he was a delightful companion, and the two boys sauntered along talking as if they had been intimates from their childhood.
Suddenly, Paul realized that much time must have flown since Jeff interrupted his meditations.
“Gee! It must be pretty late,” he exclaimed looking up through the trees, trying to guess the time by the sun. “Have you got a watch?”
Jeff laughed, and pulling his watch-chain from his pocket, displayed a bunch of keys, which he twirled jauntily.
“My watch, I’m sorry to say, is on a short vacation. But you don’t have to bother about the time. Come on with me—I’m going to scare up some of the fellows, and see what we can find to do.”
Paul hesitated. He was decidedly in the mood for falling in with Jeff’s harmless suggestion; besides, he would certainly be late for supper, and, was consequently, slated for his uncle’s reproof anyhow.
“All right. What are you going to do?”
“Oh, sit around and talk most likely. Probably ramble off to get something to eat, and then we might go up to see Tom Babcock—he’s a nice fellow. You’d like him.”
This seemed a mild and agreeable program, and was very much to Paul’s taste. If his uncle should ask him where he’d been—well, hang it, did he have to give an account of everything he did, as if he were a child of ten? And all this fuss about Jeff Roberts was such utter nonsense anyhow.