store at once, and was greeted by Carroll with the inquiry as to whether or not he had seen his son.
“My boy has not been seen since he started for school this morning,” said Carroll. “I came here because another little boy, one of my son's small school-fellows, who has succeeded in treading the paths of virtue and obedience, volunteered the information, without the slightest imputation of any guilty conspiracy on your part, that you had been seen leading my son home to your residence to dinner,” said Carroll.
“Your son made friends with me on his way from school this noon,” said Anderson, simply, “and upon his evident desire to dine with me I invited him, being assured by him that his so doing would not occasion the slightest uneasiness at home as to his whereabouts.”
Anderson was indignant at something in the other man's tone, and was careful not to introduce in his tone the slightest inflection of apology.
He made the statement, and was about to add that the boy was at that moment in his office, when Carroll interrupted. “I regret to say that my son has not the slightest idea of what is meant by telling the truth. He never had,” he stated, smilingly, “especially when his own desires lead him to falsehood. In those cases he lies to himself so successfully that he tells in effect the truth to other people. He, in that sense, told the truth to you, but the truth was not as he stated, for the ladies have been in a really pitiable state of anxiety.”
“He is in my office now,” said Anderson, coldly, pointing to the door and beginning to move towards it.
“I suspected the boy was in there,” said Carroll, and his tones changed, as did his face. All the urbanity and the smile vanished. He followed Anderson with a nervous stride. Both men entered the little office, but the boy was gone. Both stood gazing about the little space. It was absolutely impossible for anybody to be concealed there. There was no available hiding-place except under the table, and the cat occupied that, and his eyes shone out of the gloom like green jewels.
“I don't see him,” said Carroll.
Then Anderson turned upon him.
“Sir,” he said, with a kind of slow heat, “I am at a loss as to what to attribute your tone and manner. If you doubt—”
“Not at all, my dear sir,” replied Carroll, with a wave of the hand. “But I am told that my son is in here, and when, on entering, I do not see him, I am naturally somewhat surprised.”
“Your son was certainly in this room when I left it a moment ago, and that is all I know about it,” said Anderson. “And I will add that your son's visit was entirely unsolicited—”
“My dear sir,” interrupted Carroll again, “I assure you that I do not for a moment conceive the possibility of anything else. But the fact remains that I am told he is here—”
“He was here,” said Anderson, looking about with an impatient and bewildered scowl.
“He could not have gone out through the store while we were there,” said Carroll, in a puzzled tone.
“I do not see how he could have done so unobserved, certainly.”
“The window,” said Carroll, taking a step towards it.
“Thirty feet from the ground; sheer wall and rocks below. He could not have gone out there without wings.”
“He has no wings, and I very much fear he never will have any at this rate,” said Carroll, moving out. “Well, Mr. Anderson, I regret that my son should have annoyed you.”
“He has not annoyed me in the least,” Anderson replied, shortly. “I only regret that his peculiar method of telling the truth should have led me unwittingly to occasion your wife and daughters so much anxiety, and I trust that you will soon trace him.”
“Oh yes, he will turn up all right,” said Carroll, easily. “If he was in your office a moment ago, he cannot be far off.”
There was the faintest suggestion of emphasis upon the “if.”
Anderson spoke to the elderly clerk, who had been leaning against the shelves ranged with packages of cereal, surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertisements, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity. This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to shift him momentarily into any other.
In reality he managed most of the details of the selling. He heard what the two men said, and at the same time was considering that he was to send the wagon round the first thing in the morning with pease to the postmaster's, and a new barrel of sugar to the Amidons, and he was calculating the price of sugar at the slight recent rise.
“Mr. Price,” said Anderson to him, “may I ask that you will tell this gentleman if a little boy went into my office a short time ago?”
The clerk looked blankly at Anderson, who patiently repeated his question.
“A little boy,” repeated the clerk.
“Yes,” said Anderson.
Price gazed reflectively and in something of a troubled fashion at Anderson, then at Carroll. His mind was in the throes of displacing a barrel of sugar and a half-peck of pease by a little boy. Then his face brightened. He spoke quickly and decidedly.
“Yes,” said he, “just before this gentleman came in, a little boy, running, yes.”
“You did not see him come out while we were talking?” asked Anderson.
“No, oh no.”
Carroll asked no further and left, with a good-day to Anderson, who scarcely returned it. He jumped into his carriage, and the swift tap of the horse's feet died away on the macadam.
“Sugar ought to bring about two cents on a pound more,” said the clerk to Anderson, returning to the office, and then he stopped short as Anderson started staring at an enormous advertisement picture which was stationed, partly for business reasons, partly for ornament, in a corner near the office door. It was a figure of a gayly dressed damsel, nearly life-size, and was supposed by its blooming appearance to settle finally the merit of a new health food. The other clerk, who was a young fellow, hardly more than a boy, had placed it there. He had reached the first fever-stage of admiration of the other sex, and this gaudy beauty had resembled in his eyes a fair damsel of Banbridge whom he secretly adored.
Therefore he had ensconced it carefully in the corner near the office door, and often glanced at it with reverent and sheepish eyes of delight. Anderson never paid any attention to the thing, but now for some reason he glanced at it in passing, and to his astonishment it moved. He made one stride towards it, and thrust it aside, and behind it stood the boy, with a face of impudent innocence.
Anderson stood looking at him for a second. The boy's eyes did not fall, but his expression changed.
“So you ran away from your father and hid from him?” Anderson observed, with a subtle emphasis of scorn. “So you are afraid?”
The boy's face flashed into red, his eyes blazed.
“You bet I ain't,” he declared.
“Looks very much like it,” said Anderson, coolly.
“You let me go,” shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store. Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertisement which had fallen face downward on the floor.
“Must have come in from the office whilst our back was turned, and slipped in behind that picture,” said the clerk, slowly.
Anderson nodded.
“He is a queer feller,” said the clerk, further.
“He certainly is,” agreed Anderson.
“As queer as ever I seen. Guess his father 'll give it to him when he gits home.”