We Ten | Page 6

round him, I looked and looked
at him; I don't know why it is, but somehow, when I'm anywhere alone
with papa, I just have to keep looking at him instead of anything else.
He's a tall man, and thin, and he stoops round his shoulders; he wears
glasses, too, like Felix, and he always looks as if he were thinking of
something 'way off in his mind. Nurse says she's sure he'd forget to eat,
if the things weren't put right under his nose; you see that's because he's
all the time thinking of books. Oh, papa's awfully clever!
[Illustration: "PLAYING FEATHERTOP."]
After a while I found a lollipop in my pocket, and I began to suck
it,--just for company, you know; and truly the room was so quiet I was
afraid papa'd hear me swallow. Every now and then there was that little
scrabble behind the portière; I made up my mind papa must have some
one there making references for him, and I wondered who. But just
then came a quite loud knock at the study door, and before papa had
finished saying "Come!"--he never does say it right away,--the door
flew open, and in bounced Phil, as if he were in an awful hurry. He
marched straight to papa's desk, and began, very quickly, "Father, I'd
like--" But papa just waved his hand at him, without looking up: "In a
few minutes," he said, and went right on reading.
You should have seen Phil fidget: he stood on one foot, then on the
other; he put his hands in his pockets and jingled the things he had
there, till he remembered that papa doesn't like us to do that, then he
took his hands out. He straightened up, and shook his coat collar into
place, and he cleared his throat; but nothing had any effect until he
accidentally knocked a book off the desk. Then papa started, and
peered up at him in the near-sighted way that Felix does sometimes:
"H'm, too bad!" he said, taking the book from Phil; then he sighed, put
his finger on the page of his book to mark the place, and said, in a
resigned sort of way, "Well, what is it you want?"
And I tell you, Phil didn't take long to come to the point; he pitched
right in, in that quick, headlong way he has when he's awfully in

earnest. "I want to ask you, father, please to let Felix go to college in
my place. As long as we can't both go, I think he ought to be the one.
You know, sir, he's a thousand times cleverer than I am, and he'll be
sure to do you twice the credit that I shall. I do wish you'd consider the
change."
"And what do you propose to do in that case?" papa asked, peering up
at him again.
"Go into business,--lots of fellows do at my age,--if I can get anything
at all," answered Phil, squaring his shoulders.
Papa sat and thought and thought for several minutes, without a word;
then he said, in that quiet tone of voice that we children know always
settles a question, "No, I prefer that the present arrangement should be
carried out." Then he began reading again.
I thought Phil would have gone, after that; but no, he got quite excited:
"It isn't fair to Felix," he cried, thumping his hand down on the desk
with such force that the pages of the Fetich just danced,--you'll hear
more about the Fetich by and by,--"indeed it isn't! He's got the most
brains of the whole lot of us put together, and he ought to have some
advantages. And besides, sir, you know he was mother's boy." Phil's
voice shook so that a big lump came in my throat. "I'm sure she would
want him to go to college; for her sake, let us change places."
Papa put up his hand quickly, and shielded his eyes from the light, and
he didn't answer right away. "It was--her wish--that you should go," he
said presently, stopping between the words.
"Because she expected there'd be money enough for us both," Phil
began eagerly; but all of a sudden the portière that hung over the L was
pushed aside, and who should come limping up to them but Felix!
His eyes were shining, even through his glasses, and he didn't seem to
mind papa one bit. "So that's what you're up to, is it?" he said to Phil,
"trying to give me your birthright!" By this time he'd reached Phil's side,
and he threw his arm right across Phil's shoulders. "Dear old

Lion-heart!" he said,--how his voice did ring out! "And I thought you
didn't care!"
And papa just sat there and looked at them, without a