self," said Uncle Chad, serenely. "In the
meantime, may I ask you for a bite? I'm somewhat hungry."

Peter set another plate for his guest, and brewed tea, and the two
drew up to the table. Emma Campbell had provided an excellent meal,
and Mr. Chadwick Champneys plied an excellent knife and fork,
remarking that when all was said and done one South Carolina nigger
was worth six French chefs, and that he hadn't eaten anything so
altogether satisfactory for ages.

The more the young man studied the elder man's face, the better he
liked it. Figure to yourself a Don Quixote not born in Spain but in
South Carolina, not clothed in absurd armor but in a linen suit, and
who rode, not on Rosinante but in a motor-car, and you ll have a
fair enough idea of the old gentleman who popped into Peter's house
that Sunday night.

Peter asked no questions. He sat back, and waited for such
information as his guest chose to convey. He felt bewildered, and at
the same time happy. He who was so alone of a sudden found that he
possessed this relative, and it seemed to him almost too good to be
true. That the relative had never before noticed his existence, that
he was supposed to be a trifler and a ne'er-do-weel, didn't cloud
Peter's joy.

His relative put his feet on a chair, lighted and smoked a cutty,
and presently unbosomed himself, jerkily, and with some reluctance.
His wife Milly--and whenever he mentioned her name the melancholy in
his brown eyes deepened--had been dead some twelve years now. They
had had no children. He had wandered from south to west, from Mexico
and California and Yucatan to Alaska, always going to strike it
lucky and always missing it. To the day of her death Milly had stood
by, loyally, lovingly, unselfishly, his one prop and solace, his
perfect friend and comrade. There was never, he said, anybody like
her. And Milly died. Died poor, in a shack in a mining-town.

He had done something of everything, from selling patent medicines
to taking up oil and mining-claims. He couldn't stay put. He really
didn't care what happened to him, and so of course nothing happened
to him. That's the way things are.

Three years after Milly's death he had fallen in with Feilding, the
Englishman. Feilding was almost on his last legs when the two met,
and Champneys nursed him back to life. The silent, rather surly
Englishman refused to be separated from the man who, he said, had
saved his life, and the two struck up a partnershi