For an instant he stood, his eyes, grave and inscrutable,
full upon Allison's smaller ones. "I'm tol-lable," he drawled soberly.
"And--haow be you--yourself?"
Allison gasped, stood with mouth agape, and then burst into one of his
rather too-frequent, too-hearty laughs.
"Well, I'm----" he began his favorite phrase of ejaculation, and then
stopped to look down again into the small face before him. "Well,
I'm----" and he stopped to chuckle. Then he turned back to Caleb.
"I suppose, Cal, you know what this early morning call presages?" he
suggested.
Caleb recalled himself with an effort from a contemplation of the
sudden, prideful something which had warmed him while Steve was shaking
hands. He smiled, mechanically.
"I suppose it's the usual raid upon the commissary," he answered.
Allison mounted heavily to the verandah.
"Right!" he exclaimed. "Right! You'll notice that Barbara has already
gone on ahead. She's the skirmish line--scouts--videttes--whatever you
please to call 'em. There's no-one up yet--none of the family--over to
our place. We are hungry, Cal. I hope this is waffle morning?"
Caleb smiled at him, less impersonality in the mirth. It was a regular
custom, this truancy of Barbara Allison and her father--one of the
little human foibles which Caleb often told himself accounted, in part
at least, for his real liking of the man.
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