it, "Called, three P.M.," and signed it as before, and departed to his
room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.


Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of
the field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that
they could eat the native bill-of-fare as well as anybody. They found
some good, cool beer, moreover, and spoke to several people of the
Bird-in-Hand, and got several answers: for instance, that the
Bird-in-Hand was at Hingham; that it was at Nantasket; that they had
better inquire for it at South Braintree; that they had passed it a mile
back; and that there was no such place. If you would gauge the
intelligence of our population, inquire your way in a rural
neighborhood. With these directions they took up their journey after an
hour and a half,--a halt made chiefly for the benefit of the black
gelding, whom they looked after as much as they did themselves. For a
while they discussed club matters seriously, as both of them were
officers of certain organizations, chosen so on account of their
recognized executive gifts. These questions settled, they resumed the
lighter theme of philosophy, and made it (as Billy observed) a near
thing for the Causal law. But as they drove along, their minds left
this topic on the abrupt discovery that the sun was getting down out of
the sky, and they asked each other where they were and what they should
do. They pulled up at some cross-roads and debated this with growing
uneasiness. Behind them lay the way to Cambridge, - not very clear, to
be sure; but you could always go where you had come from, Billy seemed
to think. He asked, "How about Cambridge and a little Oscar to finish
off with?" Bertie frowned. This would be failure. Was Billy willing
to go back and face John the successful?