d of the intimate personalities--as I knew he would.

"I'm mighty glad to see you out, and alive and well, Bert," was the way
in which he brushed aside the awkwardnesses. "You've had pretty tough
lines, I know; but that's no reason why you should be grouchy with me.
I'm not letting it make any difference, am I?"

"Not here on the train," I conceded, sourly.

"No; and, by George, I wouldn't let it at home, either! I'll bet
you've got a few friends left in Glendale, right now, and you've had
'em all along. Been back there since you--since--er----"

I shook my head, and he went on as if he were afraid that a stop might
prove fatal to another start.

"It sure isn't any of my butt-in, but I don't believe you ought to
dodge the home town, Bert. There are a lot of good people there, and
if I were in your fix, I believe I'd want to go and bully it out right
where it happened. You've bought your little chunk of experience and
paid for it, and now you're a free man just like the rest of us. You
want to buck up, and tell them that don't like it to go straight plumb
to the dickens."

There was ample reason why he should take this tone with me if he felt
like it. I looked like a derelict and was acting like one. Moreover,
I was tormented to the verge of madness by the fear that the conductor
might come along on a ticket-punching tour, and that by this means
Barton would learn my ultimate destination--which would be equivalent,
I fancied, to publishing it in the Glendale _Daily Courier_.

"Cut it out!" I said gruffly. "If Glendale were the last place in the
universe, I wouldn't go back there."

He dropped the argument with perfect good-humor, and even made apology.
"I take it all back; it's none of my business. Of course, you know
best what you want to do. You're a free man, as I say, and can go
where you please."

His repetition of this "free man" phrase suddenly opened my eyes. He
had forgotten, as doubtless a good many others had, all about the
indeterminate sentence and its terms, if, indeed, he--and the
others--had ever known anything about its conditions. It was not to be
wondered at. Three years and a half will ordinarily blot the best of
us out of remembrance--at least as to details.

It was at this point that I twisted the talk by thrusting in a question
of my own.

"No; I haven't been in Glendale right lately--been out on the road for
a couple of weeks," was Barton's answer to the question. "We'v