“I ’ll write you before the week ’s up,” said John. “You may not need to come down.”
“I thank ye, Johnny,” said the old man. The train had halted at Hudson and he got stiffly to his feet.
“It ’s what Eddie al’ays said about you, you ’d help a man out--gi’e you time!” He chuckled feebly, with returning hope, and climbed down from the car.
His mother’s glance met him as he returned to her side.
He nodded. “He was going down to see the president. But I ’ve got him to wait.... They ought to do something for him,” he said.
“He’s not strong--except in an emergency, maybe--but he ’s faithful. That ought to count.”
“Yes, that ought to count.” She said the words softly under her breath.
JOHN was not back at the office “within the week.” He forgot the office and Simeon Tetlow and Tomlinson. He had eyes only for a white face looking up to him from the pillow and his ear listened only for low moans that broke the darkness. The spirit of courage had driven the thin body a step beyond the line where the soul has its way, and the body had turned and struck back.
Tomlinson, waiting in his daughter’s home, wondered a little at the silence, but waited, on the whole, content. Since his talk with John a hope had sprung up in him that, somehow, the boy would do for him what he could never do for himself. He had started out for Bayport more because he wanted to look Simeon Tetlow in the face than because he hoped for justice at his hands. But since he had talked with the hoy, his purpose had changed imperceptibly and his shrewd Scotch sense of justice asserted itself. He would speak the president of the road fair. The man should have his chance. He should not be condemned unheard. So Tomlinson waited, his sullen mood passing gently into tolerance.
But his daughter, a buxom woman, many years Eddie’s senior, grew impatient at the delay. She prodded Tomlinson a little for his inaction.
“What is it like, that Johnny Bennett--a slip of a boy--can do for ye with Simeon Tetlow?” she had demanded scornfully when the week had gone by and no word had come.
“He has a way ye can trust, Jennie--the boy has,” the old man had replied.
“Go and stan’ up before Sim Tetlow. Tell him to his face what ye want. And if he won’t give it to ye--then _curse him!_”