CHAPTER XIV
A SHARPER OUTWITTED
Bar and Val had a splendid time at the seashore. Never before had the former passed a week of such thoroughgoing enjoyment.
It was grand fun to catch fish; the very sailing and rowing were a kind of new life; every crab and clam they laid their hands on was a sort of new wonder. Still, if Bar had tried to analyze his feelings he would have found that, after all, the secret of his happiness was the fact that his “new time” was daily becoming more and more of a clear and clean and beautiful reality.
Val Manning was capital company, and they made more than one trip to the quiet and pleasant little home of Mrs. Brayton and Sibyl. The widow, for such she was, seemed always glad to see them, and Sibyl was sure to have something more to tell them about “George,” who seemed, indeed, to be a sort of human idol in the mind of his very pretty sister.
That sort of thing, nice as it was, had an end at last, and Bar experienced a halfway gloomy sensation at finding himself once more on his way to the great city.
Their stay there was to be brief, as previously decided, but Bar had one more good, long talk with the judge and the doctor.
“I wish,” said the former, “that you could open your valise now, but that’s impossible. I wouldn’t have you break your word for anything. I’ll tell you, however, one thing I wish you’d do. Every time you recall, or think you do, anything that happened away back, before you began to live with Major Montague, I wish you would write it down.”
“Has he been to see you while I was gone?” asked Bar.