A silence fell on them for a moment. A young man passing them spoke to the child cheerily.
“Hullo, Oliver! A Christmas present?—That 's a great boy,” he said, in sheer friendliness to the General, and passed on. The boy was evidently well known.
Oliver nodded; then feeling that some civility was due on his part to his companion, he said briefly, “That 's a friend of mine.”
“Evidently.”
The General, even in his perplexity, smiled at the quaint way the child imitated the manners of older men.
Just then they came to a little gate and the boy's manner changed.
“If you will wait, I will run around and put my bundle down. I am afraid my grandfather might see it.” He lowered his voice for the first time since the General had introduced himself. Then he disappeared around the house.
Oliver, having slipped in at the back door and carefully reconnoitred the premises, tripped up stairs with his bundle to his mother's room. He was so excited over his present that he failed to observe her confusion at his sudden entrance, or her hasty hiding away of something on which she was working. Colonel Drayton was not the only member of that household that Christmas who was to receive a great-coat.
When Oliver had untied his bundle, nothing would serve but he must put on the coat to show his mother how his grandfather would look in it. As even with the sleeves rolled up and with his arms held out to keep it from falling off him, the tails dragged for some distance on the floor and only the top of his head was visible above the collar, the resemblance was possibly not wholly exact. But it appeared to satisfy the boy. He was showing how his grandfather walked, when he suddenly recalled his new acquaintance.
“I met my other grandfather, on the street, mamma, and he came home with me.” He spoke quite naturally.