He made up his mind that he would
never play earl's son again before a doubtful audience.
His father's answer was a blow he could not understand. At times he
thought his father imagined he could get work to do in America without
any trouble, and was minded to let him try it and cure himself of his
radicalism by hard, cold, disenchanting experience. That seemed the most
plausible theory, yet he could not content himself with it. A theory
that pleased him better was, that this cablegram would be followed by
another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home. Should he write
and strike his flag, and ask for a ticket home? Oh, no, that he couldn't
ever do. At least, not yet. That cablegram would come, it certainly
would. So he went from one telegraph office to another every day for
nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram for Howard Tracy.
No, there wasn't any. So they answered him at first. Later, they said
it before he had a chance to ask. Later still they merely shook their
heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After that he was ashamed
to go any more.
He was down in the lowest depths of despair, now; for the harder Barrow
tried to find work for him the more hopeless the possibilities seemed to
grow.
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