he said.

His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was yeh goin'
t' say?"

"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.

He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that the
fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend on the
head with the misguided packet.

He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily
questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he had assured
himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a
persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period
of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the
previous day.

He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could
prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination. He
was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of
derision.

The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death. He
had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had
doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various keepsakes to
relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into
the hands of the youth.

The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to
condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.

His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an
encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own
to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.

Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at
them from a distance he began to see something fine there. He had
license to be pompous and veteranlike.

His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.

In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and
the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few but they
ever did it. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows
had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong
in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the
unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.

He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him. It was not essent