ave seen on my clock.

"I finished my task at Valparaiso while the vessel lay there, reported
by mail, and came home on the same ship.

"I took that letter and photograph to Andy Bridges's house and wrote
across the envelope 'Madelene Bridges, I demand your immediate and
unconditional surrender, signed, Steadman H. Hopkins.'

"And I got it in five minutes. Chum, that is the only case on record
where something worth having was ever surrendered to an officer of the
Peruvian government.

"In six months I was back on an engine in a new country, with my silent,
loved and loving wife, in a new home. Three times before now someone has
seen Madelene's face, twice I told this story, and then we moved away;
once I told it and trusted, and it was not repeated. Madelene can stand
being a mystery and wondered at, but she cannot stand pity and
curiosity. As for you, old Chum, I haven't even asked you not to repeat
what I have told you--I know you won't."

After a long while, I turned to Hopkins and said: "And yet, Hopkins,
fools say there is no romance in railroad life. This is a story worth
reading, and some day I'd like to write it."

"Not in Madelene's time, or in mine, Chum, but if ever a time comes,
I'll send you a token."

"Send me your picture, Hop."

"No, I'll send you Madelene's. No, I'll send you the clock with the
'talking eyes.'"

And standing at Hopkins's gate, the scar-faced man with the romance and
I parted, like ships that meet, hail and pass on, never to meet again.
Hopkins and I moved away from one another, each on his own course,
across the seven seas of life.

And all this happened almost twenty years ago.

The other day, my office boy brought me a card that read, "Mrs. Henry
Adams, Washington, D. C." "Is she a book agent?" I asked.

"Nope, don't look like one."

"Show her in."

A young woman came in, looked at me hard for a moment, laid a package on
my desk and asked,

"Is this the Mr. Alexander who used to be an engineer?"

I confessed.

"I don't suppose you remember me," she asked.

I put on my glasses and looked at her. No, I never--then she put her
handkerchief up to her lips covering the lower part of her face; it was
the face of Madelene Hopkins.

"Yes," said I, "I remember you perfectly, seventeen or eighteen years
ago you used to sit on my knee and call me 'Untle Tummy.' and I called
you Maddie."

Then we laughed and shook hands.

"Mr. Alexander," said she, "In looking over so