Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/172

152 shaking hands; there was a good deal of laughter and forced gayety.

“Don’t forget and mark me absent from chapel this morning, Mr. Barclay,” he said.

And Mr. Barclay answered with a mournful smile, “I wish that I could, and that you’d  be here to-morrow to write the report, Tom.”

Sheldon’s lip quivered then for the first time; he stiffened it and caught Edward’s  hand.

“Good-bye again, old man,” he murmured. “Wait, I’ve got a present for you;” and he put into Edward’s hand the pocket-mirror over  which their acquaintance had begun.

Edward smiled and glanced at it with blurred eyes.

A small boy at Sheldon’s side, one of his gymnasium satellites, was looking up timidly.

“Hello, Jasper!” Sheldon patted the small one’s shoulder. “You’ll not forget how to skin the cat, will you?”

The chapel bell began to ring. Sheldon stepped back into the carriage; the driver  touched the horses with the whip.