I was facing Silverthorn as I spoke, but felt impelled to turn quickly and include Vibbard in the question. They were both silent. It was plain, after a moment, that they really didn’t know which one of them had first thought of this compact.
“Wasn’t it you?” queried Silverthorn, musingly, of his comrade.
“I don’t know,” returned Vibbard; then, as if so much subtilty annoyed him: “What difference does it make, anyway? Can’t you draw an agreement for us, Ferguson?”
But I was really so much interested in getting at their minds through this channel, that I couldn’t comply at once.
“Now, you two fellows, you know,” said I, laughing, “are younger than I, and I think it becomes me to know exactly what this thing means, before proceeding any further in it. How can I tell but one of you is trying to get an advantage over the other?”
The pair looked startled at this, but it was only, I found, because they were so astonished at having such a construction put upon their project.
“Don’t be alarmed,” I hastened to say. “I wasn’t serious.”
But Vibbard persisted in a dogged expression of gloom.
“It’s always this way,” he presently declared, in a heavy, provoked tone. “My father, you know, is a shrewd man, and everybody is forever accusing me of being mean and overreaching. But I never dreamed that it could be imputed in such a move as—well, never mind!” he suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice, and with assumed indifference, getting up from his chair. “Of course it’s all over now. I sha’n’t do anything more about it, after what Ferguson has said.” He was so sulky that he had to resort to thus putting me in the third person, although he was not addressing these words to Silverthorn. Then he gave his thick frame a slight shake, as if to get rid of the disagreeable feelings I had excited, and turned toward his friend. On the instant there came into his unmoved eyes and his matter-of-fact countenance a look of sentiment so incongruous as to be almost laughable. “I wish I could have done it, Thorny,” said he, wistfully.
“Hold on, Vibbard,” I interposed. “Don’t be discouraged.”