e receiver, as we'd sort
of laid out to do, and we separated. I went back to my literature--hotel
registers, with an advertising scheme, with headquarters at Cleveland.
That's how I happened to be an Ohio man at that national convention.
Charley always had a leaning toward insurance, and went down into
Illinois, and started a mutual-benefit organization, which he kept
going a few years down on the farm--Springfield, or Jacksonville, or
somewhere down there; and when I ketched up with him again, he was just
changing it to the old-line plan, and bringing it to the metropolis.
Well, I helped him some to enlist capital, and he offered me the
position of Superintendent of Agents. I accepted, and after serving
awhile in the ranks to sort of get onto the ropes, here I am, just
starting out on a trip which will take me through a number of states."

"How does it agree with you?" I inquired.

"Not well," said he, "but the good I accomplish is a great comfort to
me. On this trip, now, I expect to do much in the way of stimulating the
boys up to their great work of spreading the light of the gospel of true
insurance. Sometimes, in these days of apathy and error, I find my
burden a heavy one; and notwithstanding the quiet of conscience I gain,
if it weren't for the salary, I'd quit to-morrow, Al, danged if I
wouldn't. It makes me tired to have even you sort of hint that I'm
actuated by some selfish motive, when, in truth and in fact, I live but
to gather widows and orphans under my wing, so to speak, and give second
husbands a good start, by means of policies written on the only true
plan, combining participation in profits with pure mutuality, and--"

"Never mind!" said I with a silence-commanding gesture. "I've heard all
that before. You're onto the ropes thoroughly; but don't practice your
infernal arts on me! I hope the salary is satisfactory?"

"Fairish; but not high, considering what they get for it."

"You used to be more modest," said I. "I remember that you once nearly
broke your heart because you couldn't summon up courage to ask Creeshy
Hammond to go to the 'Fourth' with you; d'ye remember?"

"Well, I guess, yes!" he replied. "Wasn't I a miserable wretch for a few
days! And I've never been able to ask any woman I cared about, the
fateful question, yet."

We went into the parlor-car, and talked over old times and new for an
hour. I told him of my marriage and my home, and I studied him. I saw
that he still preserved