TOM AND ROY
Anxious that his letter should go as soon as possible, Tom went down in
the elevator and was about to cross the street and post it when he ran
plunk into Roy, who was waiting on the steps.
"Good night, look who's here," Roy said, in his usual friendly tone; "I
might have known that you were upstairs. You've got the early bird
turning green with envy."
"I always come early Saturdays," Tom said.
"I want to tell you that I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you last
night, Tom," Roy spoke up. "I see now that it wasn't so bad. I guess you
have a whole lot to do up in the office, and maybe you just forgot about
how we always had the hill cabins. You can't do _everything_ you want
to do, gee I realize that."
"I can do anything I want to do," Tom said.
Roy looked at him as if he did not quite understand.
"Going back on people isn't the way to square things," Tom said. "You
got to make things right without anybody losing anything. There's always
two ways, only you've got to find the other one."
Roy did not quite understand the drift of his friend's talk, it was not
always easy to follow Tom, and indeed he did not care much what Tom
meant; he just wanted him to know that their friendship had not been
wrecked--could not be wrecked by any freakish act of Tom's.
"I don't care thirty cents what anybody says," Tom said; "I got to be
fair."
"I'm not mad, you old grouch," Roy said, "and you should say sixty
cents, because the price of everything is double. We should worry. I was
waiting here to meet you so as to tell you that I don't know why you
did that and I don't care. People have done crazier things than that, I
should hope. We can bunk in tents, all right. So don't be sore, Tomasso.
I'm sorry I said what I did and I know perfectly well that you just
didn't think. You don't suppose I really meant that I thought you knew
anybody in that troop out in Ohio, do you? I just said it because I was
mad. Gee whiz, I know you wouldn't give anybody the choice before
_us_--before your own fellows. I was mad because I was disappointed. But
now I know how maybe you were all kind of--you know--rattled on account
of being so busy.
"I ain't mad," said Tom, in his dull, stolid way; "I got to go across
the street and mail this letter."
"And you'll come to meeting next Friday night?" Roy asked, anxiously.
"I don't know," Tom said.
"And I'm going to tell the fellows that you assigned five, six, and
seven, to that Ohio troop just because you were thinking about
something else when you did it, and that you didn't know anything more
about those fellows than if they were the man in the moon," Roy paused a
moment. "Did you?" he said conclusively.
"You can tell them whatever you want to," Tom said. "You can tell them
that I didn't know anything about them if you want to. I don't care what
you tell them."
Roy paused, hardly knowing what to say. In talking with Tom one had to
get him right just as a wrestler must get his victim right and Roy knew
that he must watch his step, so to speak.
"You can tell them they won't lose anything," Tom said.
"They'll lose something all right if they lose _you_, Tomasso," Roy
said, with a note of deep feeling in his voice. "But we're not going to
lose you, I can tell you that. They think you have no use for the scouts
any more, because you met so many people in France, and know a lot of
grown-up people."
"Is that what they think?" Tom asked.
They both stepped aside for Margaret Ellison, the Temple Camp
stenographer, to pass in, and spoke pleasantly with her until she had
entered the elevator.
"I don't care what they think," Roy said; "a scout is observant. Can't I
see plain enough that you have your pioneer scout badge on? That shows
you're thinking about the scouts."
"I put it on for a reason," said Tom.
"You bet your life you did," Roy said, "and it shows you're a scout.
Once a scout, always a scout; you can't get away from that, Tomasso."
"Maybe you'll find that out," Tom said, his meaning, as usual, a little
cloudy.
"I don't have to find it out, Tom," Roy said. "Don't you suppose I know
where you stand? Do you think I'll ever forget how you and I hiked
together, and how we camped up on my lawn together, when you first got
to be a scout--do you think I will? I always liked you better than any
fellow, gee whiz, that's sure. And I know you think more of us than you
do of any one else, too. Don't you?"
"I got to go and mail this letter," Tom said.
"First you've got to say that you're for the scouts first, last and
always," said Roy gayly, and standing in his friend's path.
Tom looked straight at him, his eyes glistening.
"Do you have to ask me that?" he said.
And then was when the trails went wrong, and didn't cross right and come
out right. Roy went up in the elevator to get some circulars from Temple
Camp office, and Tom, on his way back from across the street went into
the bank to speak with Mr. Temple's secretary. And the girl spoiled
everything, as Peewee Harris always said that girls are forever doing.
She was in a great hurry to get the cover off her machine and other
matters straightened out, before Mr. Burton came in, so she did not
trouble herself to talk much with Roy. She did, however, think to call
after him just as he was leaving and he heard her words, with a kind of
cold chill, as he stepped into the elevator.
She called to him in her sweetest tone, "Isn't it too funny! A
scoutmaster, named Barnard, from out in Ohio who is going to be up at
camp knew Tom in France. Won't they have a perfectly _scrumptious_
vacation together, talking about old times?"