The Debtor Part 15

"He has no wings, and I very much fear he never will have any at this rate," said Carroll, moving out. "Well, Mr. Anderson, I regret that my son should have annoyed you."

"He has not annoyed me in the least," Anderson replied, shortly. "I only regret that his peculiar method of telling the truth should have led me unwittingly to occasion your wife and daughters so much anxiety, and I trust that you will soon trace him."

"Oh yes, he will turn up all right," said Carroll, easily. "If he was in your office a moment ago, he cannot be far off."

There was the faintest suggestion of emphasis upon the "if."

Anderson spoke to the elderly clerk, who had been leaning against the shelves ranged with packages of cereal, surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertis.e.m.e.nts, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity.

This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to s.h.i.+ft him momentarily into any other.

In reality he managed most of the details of the selling. He heard what the two men said, and at the same time was considering that he was to send the wagon round the first thing in the morning with pease to the postmaster's, and a new barrel of sugar to the Amidons, and he was calculating the price of sugar at the slight recent rise.

"Mr. Price," said Anderson to him, "may I ask that you will tell this gentleman if a little boy went into my office a short time ago?"

The clerk looked blankly at Anderson, who patiently repeated his question.

"A little boy," repeated the clerk.

"Yes," said Anderson.

Price gazed reflectively and in something of a troubled fas.h.i.+on at Anderson, then at Carroll. His mind was in the throes of displacing a barrel of sugar and a half-peck of pease by a little boy. Then his face brightened. He spoke quickly and decidedly.

"Yes," said he, "just before this gentleman came in, a little boy, running, yes."

"You did not see him come out while we were talking?" asked Anderson.

"No, oh no."

Carroll asked no further and left, with a good-day to Anderson, who scarcely returned it. He jumped into his carriage, and the swift tap of the horse's feet died away on the macadam.

"Sugar ought to bring about two cents on a pound more," said the clerk to Anderson, returning to the office, and then he stopped short as Anderson started staring at an enormous advertis.e.m.e.nt picture which was stationed, partly for business reasons, partly for ornament, in a corner near the office door. It was a figure of a gayly dressed damsel, nearly life-size, and was supposed by its blooming appearance to settle finally the merit of a new health food.

The other clerk, who was a young fellow, hardly more than a boy, had placed it there. He had reached the first fever-stage of admiration of the other s.e.x, and this gaudy beauty had resembled in his eyes a fair damsel of Banbridge whom he secretly adored.

Therefore he had ensconced it carefully in the corner near the office door, and often glanced at it with reverent and sheepish eyes of delight. Anderson never paid any attention to the thing, but now for some reason he glanced at it in pa.s.sing, and to his astonishment it moved. He made one stride towards it, and thrust it aside, and behind it stood the boy, with a face of impudent innocence.

Anderson stood looking at him for a second. The boy's eyes did not fall, but his expression changed.

"So you ran away from your father and hid from him?" Anderson observed, with a subtle emphasis of scorn. "So you are afraid?"

The boy's face flashed into red, his eyes blazed.

"You bet I ain't," he declared.

"Looks very much like it," said Anderson, coolly.

"You let me go," shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store. Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertis.e.m.e.nt which had fallen face downward on the floor.

"Must have come in from the office whilst our back was turned, and slipped in behind that picture," said the clerk, slowly.

Anderson nodded.

"He is a queer feller," said the clerk, further.

"He certainly is," agreed Anderson.

"As queer as ever I seen. Guess his father 'll give it to him when he gits home."

"Well, he deserves it," replied Anderson, and added, in the silence of his mind, "and his father deserves it, too," and imagined vaguely to himself a chastening providence for the eternal good of the father even as the father might be for the eternal good of his son. The man's fancy was always more or less in leash to his early training.

Just then the younger clerk, Sam Riggs, commonly called Sammy, entered, and espying at once with jealous eyes the fallen state of his idol in the corner, took the first opportunity to pick her up and straighten her to her former position.

Chapter IX

Little Eddy Carroll, running on his slim legs like a hound, raced down the homeward road, and came in sight of his father's carriage just before it turned the corner. Carroll had stopped once on the way, and so the boy overtook him. When Carroll stopped to make an inquiry, he caught a glimpse of the small, flying figure in the rear; in fact, the man to whom he spoke pointed this out.

"Why, there's your boy, now, Cap'n Carroll," he said, "runnin' as fast after you as you be after him." The man was an old fellow of a facetious turn of mind who had done some work on Carroll's garden.

Carroll, after that one rapid, comprehensive glance, said not another word. He nodded curtly and sprang into the carriage; but the old man, pressing close to the wheel, so that it could not move without throwing him, said something in a half-whisper, as if he were ashamed of it.

"Certainly, certainly, very soon," replied Carroll, with some impatience.

"I need it pooty bad," the old man said, abashedly.

"Very soon, I tell you," repeated Carroll. "I cannot stop now."

The old man fell back, with a pull at his ancient cap. He trembled a little nervously, his face was flushed, but he glanced back with a grin at Eddy racing to catch up.

"Drive on, Martin," Carroll said to the coachman.

The old gardener waited until Eddy came alongside, then he called out to him. "Hi!" he said, "better hurry up. Guess your pa is goin' to have a reckonin' with ye."

"You shut up!" cried the boy, breathlessly, racing past. When finally he reached the carriage, he promptly caught hold of the rear, doubled up his legs, and hung on until it rolled into the grounds of the Carroll place and drew up in the semicircle opposite the front-door.

Then he dropped lightly to the ground and ran around to the front of the carriage as his father got out. Eddy without a word stood before his father, who towered over him grandly, confronting him with a really majestic reproach, not untinctured with love. The man's handsome face was quite pale; he did not look so angry as severe and unhappy, but the boy knew well enough what the expression boded. He had seen it before. He looked back at his father, and his small, pink-and-white face never quivered, and his black eyes never fell.

"Well?" said Carroll.

"Where have you been?" asked Carroll.

The anxious faces of the boy's mother and his aunt became visible at a front window, a flutter of white skirts appeared at the entrance of the grounds. The girls were returning from their search.

"Answer me," commanded Carroll.

"Teacher sent me on an errand," he replied then, with a kind of doggedness.

"The truth," said Carroll.