ener. He was so boyish, and so much in
love, and so pathetically eager to make good with the firm, and so happy
to have some one in whom to confide.

"But it's a dog's life, after all," reflected Sam, again after the
fashion of all traveling men. "Any fellow on the road earns his salary
these days, you bet. I used to think it was all getting up when you felt
like it, and sitting in the big front window of the hotel, smoking a
cigar and watching the pretty girls go by. I wasn't wise to the packing,
and the unpacking, and the rotten train service, and the grouchy
customers, and the canceled bills, and the grub."

Pearlie nodded understandingly. "A man told me once that twice a week
regularly he dreamed of the way his wife cooked noodle-soup."

"My folks are German," explained Sam. "And my mother--can she cook!
Well, I just don't seem able to get her potato pancakes out of my mind.
And her roast beef tasted and looked like roast beef, and not like a wet
red flannel rag."

At this moment Pearlie was seized with a brilliant idea. "To-morrow's
Sunday. You're going to Sunday here, aren't you? Come over and eat your
dinner with us. If you have forgotten the taste of real food, I can give
you a dinner that'll jog your memory."

"Oh, really," protested Sam. "You're awfully good, but I couldn't think
of it. I----"

"You needn't be afraid. I'm not letting you in for anything. I may be
homelier than an English suffragette, and I know my lines are all bumps,
but there's one thing you can't take away from me, and that's my cooking
hand. I can cook, boy, in a way to make your mother's Sunday dinner,
with company expected, look like Mrs. Newlywed's first attempt at 'riz'
biscuits. And I don't mean any disrespect to your mother when I say it.
I'm going to have noodle-soup, and fried chicken, and hot biscuits, and
creamed beans from our own garden, and strawberry shortcake with real----"

"Hush!" shouted Sam. "If I ain't there, you'll know that I passed away
during the night, and you can telephone the clerk to break in my door."

The Grim Reaper spared him, and Sam came, and was introduced to the
family, and ate. He put himself in a class with Dr. Johnson, and Ben
Brust, and Gargantua, only that his table manners were better. He almost
forgot to talk during the soup, and he came back three times for chicken,
and by the time the strawberry shortcake was half consumed he was looking
at Pearlie with a sort of awe i