only way I can account
for their mewing me up there for two months."

"Well, well, that is hard luck! I'm sorry, old boy! Things didn't
begin to go my way either till within the last few months. I've always
made a fair living and saved a little money, but never gained any real
headway. Now I've got a first-rate start and the future looks pretty
favorable, and best of all, pretty safe.--No trouble at home calls you
back to Beulah? I hope Letty is all right?" Dick cast an anxious side
glance at David, though he spoke carelessly.

"Oh, no! Everything's serene, so far as I know. I'm a poor
correspondent, especially when I've no good news to tell; and anyway,
the mere sight of a pen ties my tongue. I'm just running down to
surprise Letty."

Dick looked at David again. He began to think he didn't like him. He
used to, when they were boys, but when he brought that unaccountable
wife home and foisted her and her babies on Letty, he rather turned
against him. David was younger than himself, four or five years
younger, but he looked as if he hadn't grown up. Surely his boyhood
chum hadn't used to be so pale and thin-chested or his mouth so
ladylike and pretty. A good face, though; straight and clean, with
honest eyes and a likable smile. Lack of will, perhaps, or a
persistent run of ill luck. Letty had always kept him stiffened up in
the old days. Dick recalled one of his father's phrases to the effect
that Dave Gilman would spin on a very small biscuit, and wondered if
it were still true.

"And you, Dick? Your father's still living? You see I haven't kept up
with Beulah lately."

"Keeping up with Beulah! It sounds like the title of a novel, but the
hero would have to be a snail or he'd pass Beulah in the first
chapter!--Yes, father's hale and hearty, I believe."

"You come home every Christmas, I s'pose?" inquired David.

"No; as a matter of fact this is my first visit since I left for
good."

"That's about my case." And David, hung his head a little,
unconsciously.

"That so? Well, I was a hot-headed fool when I said good-bye to
Beulah, and it's taken me all this time to cool off and make up my
mind to apologize to the dad. There's--there's rather a queer
coincidence about my visit just at this time."

"Speaking of coincidences," said David, "I can beat yours, whatever it
is. If the thought of your father brought you back, my mother drew
me--this way!" And he took something from his inside coat pocket.--"Do
you