At another time they talked of their future.  Wilbur was hazy about his own.  He was going to wait and see.  Merle was happily definite.

“I’ll tell you,” said he when they had played out the last hole one day, “it’s like this.  I feel the need to express my best thoughts in writing, so I’ve decided to become a great writer—­you know, take up literature.  I don’t mean poetry or muck of that sort—­serious literature.  Of course Harvey D. talks about my taking charge of the Whipple interests, but I’ll work him round.  Big writers are somebody—­not bankers and things like that.  You could be the biggest kind of a banker, and people would never know it or think much about it.  Writers are different.  They get all kinds of notice.  I don’t know just what branch of writing I’ll take up first, but I’ll find out at college.  Anyway, not mucky stories about a handsome stranger coming along just because a girl’s car busts down.  I’ll pick out something dignified, you bet!”

“I bet you will,” said his admiring brother.  “I bet you’ll get a lot of notice.”

“Oh”—­Merle waved an assenting hand—­“naturally, after I get started good.”

CHAPTER XIII

On a certain morning in early September Wilbur Cowan idled on River Street, awaiting a summons.  The day was sunny and spacious, yet hardly, he thought, could it contain his new freedom.  Despairing groups of half-grown humans, still in slavery, hastened by him to their hateful tasks.  He watched them pityingly, and when the dread bell rang, causing stragglers to bound forward in a saving burst of speed, he halted leisurely in sheer exultation.  The ecstasy endured a full five minutes, until a last tap of the bell tolled the knell of the tardy.  It had been worth waiting for.  This much of his future he had found worth planning.  He pictured the unfortunates back in the old room, breathing chalk dust, vexed with foolish problems, tormented by discipline.  He was never again to pass a public school save with a sensation of shuddering relief.  He had escaped into his future, and felt no concern about what it should offer him.  It was enough to have escaped.

Having savoured freedom another ten minutes, he sauntered over to the Advance office as a favour to Sam Pickering.  A wastrel printer had the night before been stricken with the wanderlust, deciding at five-thirty to take the six-fifty-eight for other fields of endeavour, and Wilbur Cowan had graciously consented to bridge a possible gap.

He strolled into the dusty, disordered office and eased the worry from Sam Pickering’s furrowed brow by attacking the linotype in spirited fashion.  That week he ran off the two editions of the paper.  A spotted small boy sat across the press bed from him to ink the forms.  He confided impressively to this boy that when the last paper was printed the bronze eagle would flap its wings three times and scream