“If your two friends will take my bag up to the ‘George,’” said Mr Richardson, despairing of getting any lucid information out of the “Firm” as a body, “I should like a walk with you, Basil, on the strand.”
Coote and Georgie departed with the bag, and the father and son being left alone, Dick gave a simple and unvarnished narrative of the legal difficulties in which he and his friends were involved.
Mr Richardson’s heart beat lighter as he heard it. The scrape was bad enough, but it was not as bad as he had imagined, nor was the foolish boy at his side the monster of iniquity his letter had almost implied. They had a long talk, those two, that afternoon as they paced the hard, dry strand at the water’s edge and watched the waves tumbling in from the sea. They talked about far more than Tom White and his boat. Dick’s heart, once opened, poured into his father’s ears the story of all his trials and temptations, and hopes and disappointments, at Templeton.
The narration did him good. It cleared and strengthened his mind wonderfully. It humbled him to discover in how many things he had been wrong, and in how many foolish; and it comforted him to feel that his father understood him and judged him fairly.
It was late in the afternoon when their walk came to an end. Then Mr Richardson said:—
“Now, I suppose you and your friends have decided that I am to give you high tea at the ‘George’—eh?”
“Thanks,” said Dick, who had had a dim prospect of the kind.
“Well, I’ll come up to the school and see if I can get Dr Winter to give you leave.”
“Dr Winter doesn’t know about Tom White’s boat, you know,” said the boy, as they walked up. “I didn’t like to tell him.”
Dr Winter was easily persuaded to allow the “Firm” to spend the evening with Mr Richardson at the “George.”