“I think he was in my office once while I was out,” replied the judge; “but he must have seen something or somebody there he didn’t like, for he hasn’t turned up since.”
“He’s not a man to give up anything,” said Bar; “but he can hardly find me as far away as Ogleport.”
“Hardly,” said the doctor; “and now, Barnaby, we both hope you will give a good account of yourself at the Academy. You will have to study pretty hard at first.”
“I suppose so,” said Bar. “Val knows a great many things that I have never heard of.”
“Keep your courage up, though,” said Judge Danvers. “I mean to make a lawyer of you one of these days. You’re just built for one.”
Kind friends they were, and Bar felt a curious glow at his heart twenty times before he and Val got away, as he found how well and thoughtfully his various wants had been foreseen and provided for.
“He’ll spend the whole of that thousand dollars,” said Bar to himself, “before he gets through with me. Well, I’ll pay him, somehow, some day. Meantime I’ll be a right good friend to Val. He’s a tip-top sort of a fellow, too.”
As for Val, that young gentleman could hardly find words to tell his mother all his satisfaction with his wonderful new chum.
“He knows everything but books, mother,” he said, “and you couldn’t get him to do a mean thing. I’m ever so glad he’s going with me.”
Then there came a leave-taking, which made Bar sick with the thought of what a wonderful thing it is to have a live father and mother. Then there followed an all-night ride, by rail, then a morning change of cars, and then a stage that took the two schoolboys to Ogleport from a direction opposite to that by which George Brayton had reached the same destination.