ntaneous, every inch a man, kindly natured, and, for one so young, a
deep student, of men as well as of books, it was not to be wondered at
that not only the major but that every one else who knew him loved him.
The major really interested him enormously. He represented a type which
was new to him, and which it delighted him to study. The major's
heartiness, his magnificent disregard for _meum_ and _tuum_, his unique
and picturesque mendacity, his grandiloquent manners at times, studied, as
he knew, from some example of the old regime, whom he either consciously
or unconsciously imitated, his peculiar devotion to the memory of his late
wife,--all appealed to Jack's sense of humor, and to his enjoyment of
anything out of the common. Under all this he saw, too, away down in the
major's heart, beneath these several layers, a substratum of true
kindness and tenderness.

This kindness, I know, pleased Jack best of all.

So when the major sprang up in delight, calling out, "Why, Jack!" it was
with very genuine, although quite opposite individual, sympathies, that
the two men shook hands. It was beautiful, too, to see the major welcome
Jack to his own apartments, dragging up the most comfortable chair in the
room, forcing him into it, and tucking a cushion under his head, or
ringing up Jefferson every few moments for some new luxury. These he would
catch away from that perfectly trained servant's tray, serving them
himself, rattling on all the time as to how sorry he was that he did not
know the exact hour at which Jack would arrive, that he might have had
breakfast on the table--how hot had it been on the road--how well he was
looking, etc.

It was specially interesting, besides, after the proper introductions had
been made, to note the way in which Jack's friends, inoculated with the
contagion of the major's mood, and carried away by his breezy, buoyant
enthusiasm, encouraged the major to flow on, interjecting little asides
about his horses and farm stock, agreeing to a man that the two-year old
colt--a pure creation on the moment of the major--would certainly beat the
record and make the major's fortune, and inquiring with great solicitude
whether the major felt quite sure that the addition to the stables which
he contemplated would be large enough to accommodate his stud, with other
similar inquiries which, while indefinite and tentative, were, so to
speak, but flies thrown out on the stream of talk,--the major rising
co