Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/373

  Coley looked around as if seeking escape.

"Come along," said Ranald, quietly, and Coley, knowing that anything but obedience was impossible, dropped his marking and followed Ranald out of the saloon.

"Well, Coley, I have had a great summer," began Ranald, "and I wish very much you could have been with me. It would have built you up and made a man of you. Just feel that," and he held out his arm, which Coley felt with admiring reverence. "That's what the canoe did," and then he proceeded to give a graphic account of his varied adventures by land and water during the last six months. As they neared Mr. Raymond's house, Ranald turned to Coley and said: "Now I want you to cut back to the Institute and tell Mr. Locke, if he is there, that I would like him to call around at my office to-morrow. And furthermore, Coley, there's no need of your going back into that saloon. I was a little ashamed to see one of my friends in a place like that. Now, good night, and be a man, and a clean man."

Coley stood with his head hung in abject self-abasement, and then ventured to say, "I couldn't stand them ducks nohow!"

"Who do you mean?" said Ranald.

"Oh, them fellers that runs the Institute now, and so I cut."

"Now look here, Coley," said Ranald, "I wouldn't go throwing stones at better men than yourself, and especially at men who are trying to do something to help other people and are not so beastly mean as to