oing his duty;
then he would cut the knot of family interference with some tremendous
stroke of paternal decision unalterable as a law of the Medes and
Persians.

All this was rolling through my memory as I breakfasted at the Universe
and considered the telegram from Eastridge.

"Do you remember promise?" Of course I remembered. Was it likely that
either of us would forget a thing like that? We were in the dingy little
room that he called his "den"; it was just after the birth of his third
child. I had told my plan of letting the staff of The Banner fall into
other hands and going out into the world to study the nations when they
were not excited by war, and write about people who were not disguised
in soldier-clothes. "That's a big plan," he said, "and you'll go far,
and be long away at times." I admitted that it was likely. "Well," he
continued, laying down his pipe, "if you ever are in trouble and can't
get back here, send word, and I'll come." I told him that there was
little I could do for him or his (except to give superfluous advice),
but if they ever needed me a word would bring me to them. Then I laid
down my pipe, and we stood up in front of the fire and shook hands. That
was all the promise there was; but it brought him down to Panama to
get me, five years later, when I was knocked out with the fever; and it
would take me back to Eastridge now by the first train.

But what wasteful brevity in that phrase, "much needed"! What did that
mean? (Why will a man try to put a forty-word meaning into a ten-word
telegram?) Sickness? Business troubles? One of those independent,
interfering children in a scrape? One thing I was blessedly sure of: it
did not mean any difficulty between Cyrus and his wife; they were of
the tribe who marry for love and love for life. But the need must be
something serious and urgent, else he never would have sent for me.
With a family like his almost anything might happen. Perhaps Aunt
Elizabeth--I never could feel any confidence in a red-haired female who
habitually dressed in pink. Or perhaps Charles Edward--if that young
man's artistic ability had been equal to his sense of it there would
have been less danger in taking him into the factory. Or probably Maria,
with her great head for business--oh, Maria, I grant you, is like what
the French critic said of the prophet Habakkuk, "capable de tout."

But why puzzle any longer over that preposterous telegram? If my friend
Talbert was in a