“I will give you a piece of advice, Davy,” said he. “If you want a thing, go straight to the man that has it. McChesney has spoken to me about this wild notion of yours of going to Vincennes, and Cowan and McCann and Ray and a dozen others have dogged my footsteps.”
“I only spoke to Terence because he asked me, sir,” I answered. “I said nothing to any one else.”
He laid down his pen and looked at me with an odd expression.
“What a weird little piece you are,” he exclaimed; “you seem to have wormed your way into the hearts of these men. Do you know that you will probably never get to Vincennes alive?”
“I don't care, sir,” I said. A happy thought struck me. “If they see a boy going through the water, sir—” I hesitated, abashed.
“What then?” said Clark, shortly.
“It may keep some from going back,” I finished.
At that he gave a sort of gasp, and stared at me the more.
“Egad,” he said, “I believe the good Lord launched you wrong end to. Perchance you will be a child when you are fifty.”
He was silent a long time, and fell to musing. And I thought he had forgotten.