senses--and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, Sammy, from
this time on."

He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I was
reading him like an illuminated sign. "He's eager to keep friends with me,"
thought I, "until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for him
and his people." And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to the
discredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but fear,
that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known then what
the Langdons had done. But--Sammy was saying, in his friendliest tone:

"What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night."

"Never in a better humor," I assured him, and as I spoke the words
they came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all it
represented--all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense--my final
and absolute renunciation of it all--acted on me as I've seen religion act
on the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at the revivals. I
felt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a dive and its stench
of sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's Heaven.

I signed the bill, and we went afoot up the avenue. Sam, as I saw with a
good deal of amusement, was trying to devise some subtle, tactful way of
attaching his poor, clumsy little suction-pump to the well of my secret
thoughts.

"What is it, Sammy?" said I at last. "What do you want to know that you're
afraid to ask me?"

"Nothing," he said hastily. "I'm only a bit worried about--about you and
Textile. Matt,"--this in the tone of deep emotion we reserve for the
attempt to lure our friends into confiding that about themselves which will
give us the opportunity to pity them, and, if necessary, to sheer off from
them--"Matt, I do hope you haven't been hard hit?"

"Not yet," said I easily. "Dry your tears and put away your black clothes.
Your friend, Tom Langdon, was a little premature."

"I'm afraid I've given you a false impression," Sam continued, with
an overeagerness to convince me that did not attract my attention at
the time. "Tom merely said, 'I hear Blacklock is loaded up with Textile
shorts,'--that was all. A careless remark. I really didn't think of it
again until I saw you looking so black and glum."

That seemed natural enough, so I changed the subject. As we entered his
house, I said:

"I'll not go up to the drawing-room. Make my excuses to your mother, will
you? I'll turn in