"Somehow or
other, I thought--I thought we'd escaped."
CHAPTER VIII
BACK TO CIVILIZATION
Pritchard, trim and neat, a New Yorker from the careful
arrangement of his tie to the tips of his patent boots, gazed
with something like amazement at the man whom he had come to meet
at the Grand Central Station. Tavernake looked, indeed, like
some splendid bushman whose life has been spent in the kingdom of
the winds and the sun and the rain. He was inches broader round
the chest, and carried himself with a new freedom. His face was
bronzed right down to the neck. His beard was fullgrown, his
clothes travel-stained and worn. He seemed like a breath of real
life in the great New York depot, surrounded by streams of
black-coated, pale-cheeked men.
Pritchard laughed softly as he passed his arm through his
friend's.
"Come, my Briton," he said, "my primitive man, I have rooms for
you in a hotel close here. A bath and a mint julep, then I'll
take you to a tailor's. What about the big country? It's better
than your salt marshes, eh? Better than your little fishing
village? Better than building boats?"
"You know it," Tavernake answered. "I feel as though I'd been
drawing in life for month after month. Have I got to wear boots
like yours--patent?"
"Got to be done," Pritchard declared.
"And the hat--oh, my Heavens!" Tavernake groaned. "I'll never
become civilized again."
"We'll see," Pritchard laughed. "Say, Tavernake, it was a great
trip of ours.
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