“That's always the way,” philosophized Thorpe in reply. “It's the old story of 'if the horse-shoe nail hadn't been lost,' you know. But we got there; and that's the important thing.”
“We did!” cried the boy, his enthusiasm rekindling, “and to-night we'll celebrate with the best dinner we ran buy in town!”
Thorpe was tempted, but remembered the thirty dollars in his pocket, and looked doubtful.
Carpenter possessed, as part of his volatile enthusiastic temperament, keen intuitions.
“Don't refuse!” he begged. “I've set my heart on giving my senior partner a dinner. Surely you won't refuse to be my guest here, as I was yours in the woods!”
“Wallace,” said Thorpe, “I'll go you. I'd like to dine with you; but moreover, I'll confess, I should like to eat a good dinner again. It's been more than a year since I've seen a salad, or heard of after-dinner coffee.”
“Come on then,” cried Wallace.
Together they sauntered through the lengthening shadows to a certain small restaurant near Woodward Avenue, then much in vogue among Detroit's epicures. It contained only a half dozen tables, but was spotlessly clean, and its cuisine was unrivalled. A large fireplace near the center of the room robbed it of half its restaurant air; and a thick carpet on the floor took the rest. The walls were decorated in dark colors after the German style. Several easy chairs grouped before the fireplace, and a light wicker table heaped with magazines and papers invited the guests to lounge while their orders were being prepared.
Thorpe was not in the least Sybaritic in his tastes, but he could not stifle a sigh of satisfaction at sinking so naturally into the unobtrusive little comforts which the ornamental life offers to its votaries. They rose up around him and pillowed him, and were grateful to the tired fibers of his being. His remoter past had enjoyed these things as a matter of course. They had framed the background to his daily habit. Now that the background had again slid into place on noiseless grooves, Thorpe for the first time became conscious that his strenuous life had indeed been in the open air, and that the winds of earnest endeavor, while bracing, had chilled. Wallace Carpenter, with the poet's insight and sympathy, saw and understood this feeling.
“I want you to order this dinner,” said he, handing over to Thorpe the card which an impossibly correct waiter presented him. “And I want it a good one. I want you to begin at the beginning and skip nothing. Pretend you are ordering just the dinner you would like to offer your sister,” he suggested on a sudden inspiration. “I assure you I'll try to be just as critical and exigent as she would be.”