CHAPTER III

WHILE IT RAINS

The advanced age of the Honourable Calvin Gray, and the precarious state of his eyesight, made it possible for him to work at his beloved self-appointed task for only a scant number of hours daily.  His new assistant, therefore, found his own working hours not only limited but variable.  Beginning at ten in the morning, by four in the afternoon Judge Gray was usually too weary to proceed farther; sometimes by the luncheon hour he was ready to lay aside his papers and dismiss his assistant.  On other days he would waken with a severe headache, the result of the overstrain he was constantly tempted to give his eyes, in spite of all the aid that was offered him.  On such days Richard could not always find enough to do to occupy his time, and would be obliged to leave the house so early that many hours were on his hands.  When this happened, he would take the opportunity to drop in at one or two of his clubs, and so convey the impression that only caprice kept him away on other days.  Curiously enough, this still seemed to him an object; he might have found it difficult to explain just why, for he assuredly was not ashamed of his new occupation.

Rather unexplainably to Richard, nearly the first fortnight of his new experience went by without his meeting any members of the family except the heads thereof and the younger son, Edgar, familiarly called by every one “Ted.”  With this youthful scion of the house he was destined to form the first real acquaintance.  It came about upon a particularly rainy November day.  Richard had found Judge Gray suffering from one of his frequent headaches, as a result of the overwork he had not been able wholly to avoid.  Therefore a long day’s work of research in various ancient volumes had been turned over to his assistant by an employer who left him to return to a seclusion he should not have forsaken.

Richard was accustomed to run down to an excellent hotel for his luncheon, and was preparing to leave the house for this purpose when Ted leaped at him from the stairs, tumbling down them in great haste.

“Mr. Kendrick, won’t you stay and have lunch with me?  It’s pouring ‘great horn spoons’ and I’m all alone.”

“Alone, Ted?  Nobody here at all?”

“Not a soul.  Uncle Cal’s going to have his upstairs and he says I may ask you.  Please stay.  I don’t go to school in the afternoon and maybe I can help you, if you’ll show me how.”

Richard smiled at the notion, but accepted the eager invitation, and presently found himself sitting alone with the lad at a big, old-fashioned mahogany table, being served with a particularly tempting meal.

“You see,” Ted explained, spooning out grapefruit with an energetic hand, “father and mother and Steve and Rosy have gone to the country to a funeral—­a cousin of ours.  Louis and Rob aren’t home till night except Saturdays and Sundays, and Ruth is at school till Friday nights.  It makes it sort of lonesome for me.  Wednesdays, though, every other week, Rob’s home all day.  When she’s here I don’t mind who else is away.”