He turned suddenly and left them, striding on to his desk in the adjoining room.
“Poor old fellow!” Dick said. “Nothing on earth could have cut his pride more.”
“If he could only hit back in some substantial way,” Walton reflected, aloud. “Think of some plan, Dick.”
“Think of nothing!” the younger man said, gloomily. “Of all things on earth, I never could have dreamt of those fellows combining that way.”
A moment later a postman came in with a bundle of letters and handed them to Fred.
“Looks like they are getting you fellows in the nine hole at last,” he said, with a laugh. “Every grocer on the street is putting out a big sign. One of them has got a picture of the old man with a handkerchief to his eyes standing in a store without a single customer, while all the crowd is headed for another place.”
“Oh, we'll have to wait and see,” Fred retorted, angrily. “I must give these letters to Mr. Whipple.”
As he went in the old man's office, he found the grocer pacing up and down, his hat in his hand, his brow dark with passion. He waved the letters from him.
“Open 'em yourself,” he said. “I'm going home. I feel like a candidate on election night who didn't get a vote in his own precinct. I don't intend to stay down here where everybody can pick at me. I heard what that whelp said to you and Dick. They are all gloating over me like buzzards over a dead ox. When you come up to supper, bring the night mail with you.”
He strode from the room, and Fred heard his despondent step on the resounding floor all the way to the rear door of the long house.
Fred worked over his books and out-of-town orders till near sunset; then he took down his coat and hat.
“It might work,” he mused. “At any rate, there can be no harm in asking him about it.” He went out, and, turning into a quiet side-street, he walked up to the comfortable home of his employer, which stood on a slight elevation among the best houses of the place.
It occupied a small lot, as did its neighbors, and there were no grass or flowers about it. It was built of yellow bricks, and had a porch in front, against which, on a lattice, some vines were growing.
As he entered the gate an elderly woman approached the front door and stood waiting for him. It was Stephen Whipple's wife, a gaunt woman in a simple black dress without ornament, and wearing her iron-gray hair brushed smoothly over her brow.