"Girls," he began, "Mary wins in the argument about trifles, and as a result I am feeling pretty mean about the business. I guess I am the trifle in the case."
Both girls laughed as they glanced at his six feet of length, and his great, broad shoulders.
"O, it is no laughing matter," he said, good-naturedly. "This is the way it happened: Washington's birthday, you know, everything in town was closed, and I thought, as Al was living in a boarding-house, I would better ask mother if I might bring him home the night before, and have him spend the day here with us; we were going to have a kind of celebration anyway, you know. So about seven o'clock that evening, just before I started for the travel lecture, I ran up to mother's room. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she would not include Al in the number of her guests, when I noticed that she looked pretty blue. I know she whisked away a tear so I should not get sight of it. I pretended I didn't see it but I said, 'Got some troubles, little mother?'"
Helen knew in just what a hearty, cheerful way he said it.
"'Not very many, dear,' she said; but I didn't feel like bothering her about anything then, and decided it would do just as well to bring Al home the following Saturday night and keep him over Sunday."
Will looked dubious.
"But it didn't do," he continued. "Having nothing to keep him busy that holiday, Al went off with a crowd he had always before refused to join—a pretty gay set, I am afraid. The man who had half promised him the position he had been slaving for during the past year happened to see him with those people, and the very next day he informed Al very curtly that, after due consideration, he found he had no place for him. Alson guessed why, and now he feels reckless, and says he might as well have the game as the name, might as well be really bad since he has to suffer anyway. He talked in a desperate sort of way this morning when he told me about it. Somehow I feel responsible for the whole thing, because I hesitated about asking mother."
Will looked thoughtfully across at the girls, whose faces expressed real sympathy. Suddenly Helen exclaimed:—
"The night before Washington's birthday, you say?"
"Yes."