“Well, maybe I’d better look him over, just in case. Where’s he to be found?”
“They live in the cottage by the big house you can see through them trees. His pop looks after Mr. Wilson’s prize dawgs. That’s his job.”
“What’s Wilson?” asked the White Hope, coming out of his stupor.
“You beat me to it by a second, kid. I was just going to ask it myself.”
“He’s one of them rich New Yawkers. He has his summer place here, and this Whiting looks after his prize dawgs.”
“Well, I guess I’ll give him a call. It’s going to be lonesome for my kid if he ain’t got some one to show him how to hit it up. He’s not used to country life. Come along. We’ll get into the bubble and go and send your pop a telegram.”
“What’s telegram?” asked William Bannister.
“I got you placed now,” said Steve, regarding him with interest. “You’re not going to turn into an ambassador or an artist or any of them things. You’re going to be the greatest district attorney that ever came down the pike.”
Chapter XIV. The Sixty-First Street Cyclone
It was past seven o’clock when Kirk, bending over the wheel, with Mamie at his side came in sight of the shack. The journey had been checked just outside the city by a blow-out in one of the back tyres. Kirk had spent the time, while the shirt-sleeved rescuer from the garage toiled over the injured wheel, walking up and down with a cigar. Neither he nor Mamie had shown much tendency towards conversation. Mamie was habitually of a silent disposition, and Kirk’s mind was too full of his thoughts to admit of speech.
Ever since he had read Steve’s telegram he had been in the grip of a wild exhilaration. He had not stopped to ask himself what this mad freak of Steve’s could possibly lead to in the end—he was satisfied to feel that its immediate result would be that for a brief while, at any rate, he would have his son to himself, away from all the chilling surroundings which had curbed him and frozen his natural feelings in the past.
He tried to keep his mind from dwelling upon Ruth. He had thought too much of her of late for his comfort. Since they had parted that day of the thunder-storm the thought that he had lost her had stabbed him incessantly. He had tried to tell himself that it was the best thing they could do, to separate, since it was so plain that their love had died; but he could not cheat himself into believing it.