The Queen of Farrandale: A Novel — Reading Notes

“No, about your sister Carol.”

“Good old Carol?” said the boy with surprise.

“Yes. How much more time have you before you must go back to the store?”

Hugh looked at his wrist watch. Its dilapidated leather bracelet matched the carelessness of its owner’s general appearance. “Half an hour.”

“Then let us eat quickly and get to some quiet spot.”

They found it in a hotel lobby on the way to Hugh’s place of business, and in transit John Ogden took further mental note of his companion’s shabbiness. Not only were his clothes in need of brushing, but he had not shaved to-day; his shoes were dusty and by industry the boy finished several cigarettes before, in the hotel lobby, they found a couple of neighboring chairs, and he lighted another.

“Hard luck to tote you around this way, Mr. Ogden, but all I’ve got is a hall bedroom in a hash house.”

“You talk a lot about luck, don’t you?” remarked the older man. “You don’t look as if you had ever gone after it very hard.”

“Oh, yes,” responded Hugh; “I’ve batted around considerable after jobs.”

“You don’t keep them very long, eh?”

“No, and the devil can take them for all me. I’ve never had anything worth keeping since I got back from France. I care for nobody and nobody cares for me. That’s about the size of it, and most of the other fellows are the same way. My friends are all Bolshevists.”

“Oh, come now,” said the older man, regarding the frank young ne’er-do-well with some disgust, “that isn’t worthy of your father’s son.”

“Perhaps not; but what do you care?” turning upon his well-dressed, well-groomed companion; nettled by the shade of contempt in his tone. “My father’s dead and that’s the end of him.”

“I was going to tell you why I care,” said Ogden, meeting the inimical look in the exceedingly handsome blue eyes bent upon him. He paused a minute, then added, “I am glad I stopped over and hunted you up. You remind me of her.”

“Oh, yes,” said Hugh listlessly, “Carol. You said something about Carol.”

“I did,” returned the other quietly. “Twelve years ago to-day I asked her to be my wife.”

“_You_—Carol?” The boy’s voice was so incredulous that Ogden smiled.

“Yes; I wasn’t always forty-two, you know. I was thirty then, and she was eighteen.”

“That was the reason you hung around father, then?”

“One of the reasons, yes,” said Ogden slowly. “She was a sober little head for eighteen, and it was largely because for years she had had to be a mother to her little brother.”

The tone and manner in which this was said caused Hugh to remove his cigarette for a thoughtful moment. “Good old Carol,” he said; then, restoring the cigarette, he added, “I wish to thunder she had married you. That guy Morrison carried her off to Colorado. She hated to leave me like the devil. She wrote me every day while I was over there.”

“Don’t light another cigarette, Hugh,” exclaimed the other in irrepressible impatience. “Don’t you know you never will hold a position if you’re one of these coffin-tack slaves?”

Hugh flared up. The flare showed in his beautiful eyes and darkened them to violet. Who was this glass of fashion to dictate to a decent Bolshevist like himself!

“And don’t I tell you I don’t give a damn how many dinky positions I lose?” he retorted.

Ogden put a soothing hand on the boy’s big arm and was nervously shaken off. “I’m sorry, old man. Don’t take it that way. Of course you’re free, white, and twenty-one; but I can’t help taking an interest in you.”

“Better cut it. I thank you, of course, for looking me up”—Hugh rose—“but I’ve got to trot along now. Good luck to you.”

John Ogden rose, too. “It won’t be good luck for me unless I see you again. I’m staying at this hotel. Come to dinner with me to-night.”

“Oh, no. Thank you just the same, but I’ve no togs decent to dine in a place like this.” The boy was somewhat touched by the older man’s invitation and manner, and he smiled grudgingly, revealing perfect teeth and more than ever causing Ogden a twinge of memory. “I can dress for a dinner of Reds in some cellar. That’s my size.”