Nothing But the Truth. Isham Frederic Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ walked up to him and laid an arm affectionately upon son’s broad shoulders. “I’ve the utmost confidence in you, my boy,” he said, with a bland smile.

      “Thank you, sir,” replied Bob. He always preserved an attitude of filial respect toward his one and only parent. But he tore himself away from dad now as soon as he could. He wanted to think. The average hero, thrust out into the world, has only a single load to carry. He has only to earn a living for himself. Bob’s load was a double one and therefore he would have to be a double hero. Mechanically he walked on and on, cogitating upon his unenviable fate. Suddenly he stopped. He found himself in front of the club. Bob went in. And there he met Dickie, Clarence, Dan the doughty “commodore” and some others.

      That Impecunious Bob should have said “It could be done” to Imperial Dickie’s “It couldn’t” and have allowed himself to be drawn further into the affair was, in itself, an impertinence. For Dickie was a person of importance. He had a string of simoleons so long that a newspaper-mathematician once computed if you spread them out, touching one another, they would reach half around the world. Or was it twice around? Anyhow, Dickie didn’t have to worry about hustling, the way Bob did now. At the moment the latter was in a mood to contradict any one. He felt reckless. He was ready for almost anything – short of an imitation of that back-to-nature hero of a popular novel.

      They had been going on about that “could” and “couldn’t” proposition for some time when some one staked Bob. That some one was promptly “called” by the “commodore” – as jolly a sea-dog as never trod a deck. Dan was a land-commodore, but he was very popular at the Yacht Club, where something besides waves seethed when he was around. He didn’t go often to the University Club where he complained things were too pedagogic. (No one else ever complained of that.) He liked to see the decks – or floors – wave. Then he was in his element and would issue orders with the blithe abandon of a son of Neptune. There was no delay in “clapping on sail” when the commodore was at the helm. And if he said: “Clear the decks for action,” there was action. When he did occasionally drift into the University, he brought with him the flavor of the sea. Things at once breezed up.

      Well, the commodore called that some one quick.

      “Five thousand he can’t do it.”

      “For how long?” says Dickie.

      “A week,” answered the commodore.

      “Make it two.”

      “Oh, very well.”

      “Three, if you like!” from Bob, the stormy petrel.

      They gazed at him admiringly.

      “It isn’t the green garden talking, is it, Bob?” asked Clarence Van Duzen whose sole occupation was being a director in a few corporations – or, more strictly speaking, not being one. It took almost all Clarence’s time to “direct” his wife, or try to.

      Bob looked at Clarence reproachfully. “No,” he said. “I’m still master of all my thoughts.” Gloomily. “I couldn’t forget if I tried.”

      “That’s all right, then,” said Dickie.

      Then Clarence “took” some one else who staked Bob. And Dickie did likewise. And there was some more talk. And then Bob staked himself.

      “Little short of cash at the bank just now,” he observed. “But if you’ll take my note – ”

      “Take your word if you want,” said the commodore.

      “No; here’s my note.” He gave it – a large amount – payable in thirty days. It was awful, but he did it. He hardly thought what he was doing. Having the utmost confidence he would win, he didn’t stop to realize what a large contract he was taking on. But Dan, Dickie, Clarence and the others did.

      “Of course, you can’t go away and hide,” said Dickie to Bob with sudden suspicion.

      “No; you can’t do that,” from Clarence. “Or get yourself arrested and locked up for three weeks! That wouldn’t be fair, old chap.”

      “Bob understands he’s got to go on in the even tenor of his way,” said the commodore.

      Bob nodded. “Just as if nothing had happened!” he observed. “I’ll not seek, or I’ll not shirk. I’m on honor, you understand.”

      “That’s good enough for me!” said Dickie. “Bob’s honest.”

      “And me!” from Clarence.

      “And me!” from half a dozen other good souls, including the non-aqueous commodore.

      “Gentlemen, I thank you,” said Bob, affected by this outburst of confidence. “I thank you for this display of – this display – ”

      “Cut it!”

      “Cork it up! And speaking of corks – ”

      “When does it begin?” interrupted Bob.

      “When you walk out of here,”

      “At the front door?”

      “When your foot touches the sidewalk, son.” The commodore who was about forty in years sometimes assumed the paternal.

      “Never mind the ‘son.’” Bob shuddered. “One father at a time, please!” And then hastily, not to seem ungracious: “I’ve got such a jolly good, real dad, you understand – ”

      The commodore dropped the paternal. “Well, lads, here’s a bumper to Bob,” he said.

      “We see his finish.”

      “No doubt of that.”

      “To Bob! Good old Bob! Ho! ho!”

      “Ha! ha!” said Bob funereally.

      Then he got up.

      “Going?”

      “Might as well.”

      The commodore drew out a watch.

      “Twelve minutes after three p.m. Monday, the twelfth of September, in the year of our Lord, 1813,” he said. “You are all witnesses of the time the ball was opened?”

      “We are.”

      “Good-by, Bob.”

      “Oh, let’s go with him a way!”

      “Might be interesting,” from Clarence sardonically.

      “It might. Least we can do is to see him start on his way rejoicing.”

      “That’s so. Come on.” Which they did.

      Bob offered no objection. He didn’t much care at the time whether they did or not. What would happen would. He braced himself for the inevitable.

      CHAPTER II – A TRY-OUT

      To tell the truth – to blurt out nothing but the truth to every one, and on every occasion, for three whole weeks – that’s what Bob had contracted to do. From the point of view of the commodore and the others, the СКАЧАТЬ