and mustache, who must have been near sixty, but
who possessed, temporarily at least, the youth and spirits of thirty;
and he was one of that sort of looking men to whom one instinctively
gives a title.

"Can't take a chance, Governor," said the driver, grinning. "I might
as well go jump off the dock as go back to the stand without them four
dollars. I'm in bad, anyhow."

"I'll bet you the tip, then," offered the very-much-alive elderly
gentleman, flourishing a five-dollar bill.

"All right," agreed the driver, eying the money. "Nothing or two
dollars."

"No, you don't! Not with Silas Fox, you don't!" promptly disputed that
gentleman. "First comes out of the dollar change two bits for bananas,
and then the bet is nothing or a dollar and a half that your horse'll
eat 'em. Why, any horse'll eat bananas," he added, turning suddenly to
Wallingford. With the habit of shrewdness he paused for a thorough
inspection of J. Rufus, whose bigness and good grooming and jovial
pinkness of countenance were so satisfactory that Mr. Fox promptly
made up his mind the young man could safely be counted as one of the
pleasures of existence.

"I'll bet _you_ this horse'll eat bananas," he offered.

"I'm not acquainted with the horse," objected Wallingford, with no
more than reasonable caution. "I don't even know its name. What do you
want to bet?"

"Anything from a drink to a hundred dollars."

J. Rufus threw back his head and chuckled in a most infectious manner,
his broad shoulders shaking and his big chest heaving.

"I'll take you for the drink," he agreed.

Two strapping big fellows in regulation khaki came striding past the
hotel, and Mr. Fox immediately hailed them.

"Here, you boys," he commanded, with a friendly assurance born of the
feeling that to-night all men were brothers; "you fellows walk across
the street there and get me a quarter's worth of real ripe bananas."

The soldiers stopped, perplexed, but only for an instant. The driver
of the cab was grinning, the door-man of the hotel was grinning, the
prosperous young man by the curb was grinning, and the well-dined and
wined elderly gentleman quite evidently expected nothing in this world
but friendly complaisance.

"All right, Senator," acquiesced the boys in khaki, themselves
catching the grinning contagion; and quite cheerfully they accepted a
quarter, wheeled abreast, marched over to the fruit stand, bought the
ripest bananas on sale, wheeled, and marched b