like beard and a fierce crest of hair. Again he neighed and again, and in answer to his neigh came the bellow of the waves.
So, noisy, riotous, snowy, they staggered into the side door. Finch, depositing Wakefield on the floor, leaned against the wall, his hand to his side.
"Winded?" asked Wakefield, looking kindly up at him.
"You bet."
"Do you know, I think a beef, iron, and wine mixture would be good for you. You've grown too fast and you can't stand much, and you look right now as if you were going to fall in a heap."
The virtue was indeed gone out of Finch, the madness, the gaiety, but he did not want medical advice from this patronizing youngster. With a grunt he turned away and slouched to the dining-room.
In the stable Renny had remarked, a shadow on his face: "A delicate boy, that."
"Yes, so I gathered," returned Leigh. "Perhaps he'll outgrow it. They often do, don't they? I wasn't a very strong kid myself."
Renny looked him over. "Hmph," he observed, without any note of encouragement; then added, more cheerfully: "I'd like to take you to my office and show you the horse's pedigree." He led the way to a small room partitioned off from a corner of the stable. He switched on a dangling electric bulb, and, after placing a kitchen chair for Leigh, seated himself before a yellow oak desk and began to look over a file of papers.
As he sat engrossed, beneath the hard white light, Leigh studied him with an access of interest. He tried to put himself in Finch's place, to imagine how it would feel to be obliged to ask this stern-looking fellow for permission to do this and that, to face him after failure in an exam. He was so sensitive himself, he had been so surrounded by understanding and sympathy, that he could not imagine it. . . . He wished very much that he were not going to buy the horse. It would be necessary to board it out; it would be necessary to ride it, and he did
