Accordingly, he accepted Jeff’s friendly invitation, and they went off together following the road on through the woods which led by a short cut to the neighboring town, of Goldsboro.
Goldsboro was a progressive young community where, unquestionably you could find more to do than at Frederickstown. The streets were brightly lighted at night, every Wednesday and Saturday evening during the summer a band played for two hours in the Square, and the shops stayed open until ten o’clock, and there was even a theatre where such old classics as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “The Old Homestead,” and “Billy, the Kid,” were enacted by an ambitious stock company.
Jeff seemed to know everyone, and it was not long before he had collected a jolly party of five or six boys. He also knew where you could get a capital sea-food supper, and insisted that Paul should be his guest. In fact, Paul found the attentions bestowed upon him by this rather famous youth, decidedly flattering though he was at a loss to know just why Jeff should suddenly have begun to treat him as if he were his best friend. The truth was that Jeff was inclined to sudden friendships, which were often as speedily broken as made.
Supper over, it was suggested that they drop around and see what Tom Babcock was doing.
Tom was a young man older even than Jeff—two-and-twenty, perhaps, or twenty-three. He lived magnificently alone in a small room over a corner drugstore, where they found him smoking his pipe and hanging half way out of his window to watch the crowd in the Square, and to hear the strains of the brass-band which at that moment was playing “Kathleen Mavourneen” with deep pathos.
Upon the arrival of his guests, Tom lighted his gas, and after a little conversation they all sat down to a game of cards.
Paul enjoyed himself immensely. He liked Jeff, he liked Tom, he liked Jim, and Jack and Harry. They were “nice fellows,” all of them. Why they should be considered such a dangerous crew was more than he could understand.
And meantime the night wore on.
In the Lambert household mild wonder at Paul’s absence gave way to anxiety.
“Well, I suppose the boy knows how to take care of himself,” remarked Mr. Lambert, drily.