Tommy looked at me, with bright eyes, as if about to tell me something, but he changed his mind.
"Yes," he said, "I met a stranger there."
[XVIII]
AND LAST
And so these brief sketches plucked here and there from the boyhood of Tommy Wideawake, and patched unskilfully together, must be gathered up and docketed as closed, even as the boyhood from which they have been drawn.
Yet the story of Tommy Wideawake is still being written, where all may read who have eyes for the strength, and godliness of a country squire's life, and a hand for his stalwart grip.
On the occasion of Tommy's twenty-first birthday, there were, of course, great rejoicings in Camslove, and a general gathering of the country-side to the old Grange.
Tommy, in the course of a successful, if not eloquent speech, made some extravagant remarks as to the debt he owed to his four friends, and guardians—the poet, the vicar, the doctor, and myself.