Suddenly the town was full of girls, girls running here, walking there, going in doors, coming out, girls in the dime store, girls dangling their legs at the soda fountain, girls in mirrors or reflected in windows, stepping off curbs or stepping up, and all of them, all in bright not yet fall, not quite autumn dresses, and all, well maybe not all but almost all, with wind blowing their hair and all with downcast eyes looking to see where their shoes might take them.
It seemed to happen overnight, this infestation of girls, and Douglas walked through the town as if it were a mirror maze, walked down to the ravine steps and halfway up the jungle path before he realized where he was. From the top of the last rise he could almost see the lake and the sand and the tent with the question mark over the entrance.
He kept walking and found himself, inexplicably, in Mr Quartermain’s front yard, waiting for he couldn’t say what.
Quartermain, half–hidden in shadow on the front porch, leaned forward in his rocking chair, creaking the wicker, creaking his bones. For a long moment the old man looked one way, the boy another, until their gazes locked.
‘Douglas Spaulding?’ Quartermain said.
‘Mr Quartermain?’ asked the boy.
It was as if they were meeting for the first time.
‘Douglas Spaulding.’ This time it was not a question, but a confirmation. ‘Douglas Hinkston Spaulding.’
‘Sir.’ And this was not a question from the boy, either. ‘Mr Calvin C. Quartermain.’ And again, ‘Sir.’
‘What’re you doing down there, so far out on the lawn?’
Douglas was surprised. ‘Dunno.’
‘Why don’t you come up here?’ said Quartermain.
‘I’ve got to get home,’ said Douglas.
‘No hurry. Why don’t we sort out the sic transits, letting loose the dogs of war, havocs cried, all that.’
Douglas almost laughed, but found he could not take the first step.
‘Look,’ said Quartermain. ‘If I take out my teeth I won’t bite.’ He pantomimed as if removing something from his mouth but stopped, for Douglas was on the first step, and then the second, and finally at the top, where the old man nodded at another rocker.
Whereupon a remarkable thing took place.
Even as Douglas sat it seemed that the porch planks sank the merest half inch under his weight.
Simultaneously, Mr Quartermain felt his wicker seat move up half an inch!
Then, still further, as Quartermain settled back in his rocker, the porch sank under him.
And at that precise moment, the chair under Douglas rose silently, a quarter inch.
So that each, only sensing, only half knowing, felt that he occupied one end of an invisible teeter–totter which, as they spoke quietly, moved up, moved down, first Douglas sinking as Quartermain rose, then Quartermain descending as Douglas imperceptibly lifted – now one up, now down; now the other up, now down; slowly, slowly.
Now Quartermain high in the soft air of the dying summer, a moment later, Douglas the same.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes, son?’
He’s never called me that before, thought Douglas, and looked at the old man’s face softened with some half–perceived sympathy.
Quartermain leaned forward.
‘Before you ask me whatever you’ve got on your mind, let me ask you something.’
‘Sir?’
The old man’s voice was quiet.