The Bachelors. William Dana Orcutt

all the circumstances."

      "Come here, you young rascal," Huntington responded to the implied question as he stepped on the pier; "come here and give an account of yourself."

      "Well," Billy replied slowly, clinging to the extended hand as a refuge, "you see I didn't know Mr. Cosden came down with you, and it was vacation, and I thought you'd be awfully lonely here without me—"

      "I see," his uncle said dryly; "it was all on my account."

      Billy seemed to feel the necessity of further explanation. "Of course I knew Merry—the Thatchers were here. Phil told me—"

      "Too bad Philip couldn't have come with you," Mrs. Thatcher remarked.

      "Yes; he went up to the Lawrences' house-party for over Christmas as he planned."

      "How did you leave your worthy parents?" Huntington inquired.

      A look of dismay passed over the boy's face. "I forgot to telegraph them from New York, and I meant to cable just as soon as I arrived." Then an expression of relief came to his assistance: "But they'll know I'm with you—somewhere."

      Huntington sighed. "Another reckoning for me when I return!" he said resignedly; "but it's worth it all to know that you 'charged down here like a young dace' as soon as you realized your poor uncle's 'awful loneliness.'"

      "Then it was you who tried to signal us from the tender?" Merry came to his rescue.

      "Yes; I thought it was you; I wigwagged until I almost plunged overboard. I've got to go back Monday, to reach Cambridge in time to register, so I hated to lose a whole day out of three."

      "There's one thing about a college education which Mr. Huntington didn't mention last evening," Thatcher remarked to Cosden as they walked toward the bar for the anteprandial cocktail; "it gives a boy freedom of action and breadth of imagination."

      "Huntington left out a whole lot of things he might have touched on," Cosden said testily. "That's a topic on which we don't agree, and never shall. There is a boy with many sterling qualities going to waste because Monty has more wishbone than backbone in the matter of discipline."

      "Don't get started on that, Connie," Huntington's voice came from the rear. "I've no doubt it's deserved, but that boy keeps me from remembering that my own days of irresponsibility are so far behind me. I believe I enjoy him the more because I haven't a parent's duty to perform."

      "It's a sort of reciprocity without personal liability," laughed Thatcher.

      "Exactly. I wonder sometimes if what we gain by experience is worth what we lose in illusion.—Aren't you coming up-stairs to dress for dinner, Billy?" Huntington continued, as his nephew and Merry walked past them, engaged in an animated conversation.

      "Don't wait for me," was the prompt response. "I'm a bear at dressing, and I'll be ready before Dixon has put in your collar-studs."

      "I feel easier down here since I know that you're off duty, too, and not likely to upset my apple-cart while I'm away," Thatcher remarked to Cosden with a smile. "Did you know, Mr. Huntington," he continued, turning, "that your friend is a wrecker of other men's plans?"

      "It's the best thing he does," Huntington agreed promptly. "That exactly explains my presence here."

      Cosden was immensely pleased by Thatcher's acknowledgment of his importance, but he tried to carry it off lightly.

      "Oh, well," he said indifferently, "you must let me have my innings once in a while. I have to get to you sometimes to make up for other bouts which I've been glad to forget."

      "You'll join us, of course," Thatcher added, to Huntington.

      "I can resist anything but temptation," Huntington replied soberly; "I love the enemy."

      "This cocktail-drinking is a curious thing," Thatcher remarked. "In cold weather we take it to warm us up, in warm weather to cool us off; when we are depressed it is to cheer us, and when we're happy it's because we want to celebrate. And there you are.—How about the Consolidated Machinery deal?" Thatcher changed the subject abruptly, and spoke to Cosden. "Are we going to fight each other on that?"

      "I'm afraid we'll have to," Cosden admitted frankly; "but I'll be glad to talk it over with you. From here, the interests look too far apart even to compromise."

      Cosden and Huntington went up in the elevator together, leaving Thatcher on the piazza.

      "What the devil did that young cub show up here for just at this time?" Cosden demanded.

      "Didn't you hear?" Monty explained innocently. "He wanted to cheer me up in my 'awful loneliness.'"

      "Lonely fiddlesticks!" Cosden protested irritably. "Don't you grasp the fact that his coming is going to mess things up?"

      "Why, no," Huntington said slowly, pausing at the door of his room to give his friend opportunity to finish his remarks; "I can't for the life of me see that."

      "Don't you see that it's Merry Thatcher the kid is making up to?"

      "Oh, ho!" Huntington exclaimed. "So that's the situation! It was stupid of me not to understand."

      "Well, that's it; and I won't have it."

      "Of course you won't; but how are you going to stop it?"

      "That's your job, Monty. It's up to you to send him about his business."

      "That doesn't appeal to me as a sporting proposition," Huntington said after a moment's deliberation. "I didn't come down here to help you get a corner in anything, but merely as an observer, and to give you expert advice. Now you suggest a combination—trust, as it were—of two full-grown men against a half-baked boy. It isn't worthy of you, Connie, and I'm not sure that it isn't an illegal restraint of trade. Oh, no; I couldn't think of it."

      "I'd like to see you in the same situation just once," growled Cosden. "Why the devil can't you send the boy home?"

      "If I did, he'd come back so quick he'd meet himself going away," Huntington said gravely; "but as a matter of fact I understand that he plans to go on Monday, and there's no boat sailing before then anyhow."

      He opened the door of his room and stepped inside.

      "I might add, Connie," he continued, "that if you're afraid to take chances with a boy like that I don't feel much confidence in the final outcome of your benedictine expedition."

      "I'm serious in this," Cosden snapped back. "My bump of humor evidently got light-struck in the developing. Billy has twenty years ahead of him to pick out a girl while I haven't, and he must understand that I mean business."

      "Of course he must," agreed Huntington. "It hadn't occurred to me until you spoke of it that there was the remotest chance of having Billy show sense enough to become interested in any girl so well calculated to make a man of him. In fact, I doubt very much whether his own intellect has carried him so far. It's all right for you or me to contemplate committing matrimony, but a young man, in these days of increasing cost of everything, is likely to become a grandfather before he can afford to be a father. Only the other day, Connie, the thought came to me that if this high cost of living continues it will make death a necessity of life."

      "You are evidently in no frame of mind to discuss anything serious now," Cosden retorted; "I'll wait until after dinner."

      "Do!" Huntington's face brightened. "Look at the reproachful expression on the bosom of that beautiful white shirt which Dixon has laid out for me. Can't you almost hear the pathos in its tone as it asks to be filled?"

      The door slammed, and Cosden's heavy tread could be heard as he disgustedly retreated down the hall to his own room.

      One of the compensations of maturity is that the adjustment of proper proportions comes more quickly than to youth. It may be that Cosden saw the modicum of truth which lay beneath his friend's bantering; it may be that he was ashamed to have shown any uncertainty in his mind as to the final outcome of his embassy. At all events, he seemed