It was a capital dinner; and Ford was proud of it, for he had picked out every item of it, from the soup to the macaroons. Dick Lee had enjoyed it hugely, after he began to feel that his first social victory had been fairly won for him. Still, he had doubts in his own mind as to whether he would ever dare such another undertaking with less than five white boys along to "see him through."
Joe and Fuz ate well; but their spirits were manifestly low, for they were painfully conscious of having forever lost the good opinion of that mulatto waiter.
"But for Dick Lee's being with us," they thought, "he and everybody else would have known we were gentlemen. We'll never be caught in such a trap again."
It is a very sad matter, no doubt, to lose the intelligent respect of such gentlemen as Mr. Augustus Bellerington, but it sometimes has to be done; that is, unless their good opinion is to be gained by some nice little stroke of sneaking cowardice.
Joe and Fuz stood it out, indeed, mainly because they were in some way more afraid of Dab and Ford and Frank than they were of even Augustus.
That, too, was strange; for they were older than either of the others, and taller than any but Dabney himself.
The dinner was well eaten, and it was well paid for, as Dabney remarked when he paid his share and half of Dick's; and then they were all in the street again, marching along, and "sight-seeing," towards the Grand Central Railroad Depot.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FIRST MORNING IN GRANTLEY, AND ANOTHER EXCELLENT JOKE.
Ford Foster was the only one of those six boys who had ever seen the great railway-building, and he confessed that it looked a little large, even to him. Frank Harley freely declared that he had seen nothing like it in India; and Dick Lee's eyes showed all the white they had to show, before he had seen the whole of it.