can spare me a moment, I want to talk to you about an
important matter.

Call me by telephone, like a good fellow, and I'll run over to your
apartment at once and tell you what is on my mind.

Yours,
P. B."

CHAPTER XXX

DONALD'S HOMECOMING

"By the Lord Harry, but I'm glad to see you back again, safe and sound,
you good-for-nothing old reprobate."

True to his written statement, Philip had come to Donald's apartment as
fast as a taxicab could bring him, after he had heard his old friend's
voice over the wire. Now the two men gripped hands, hard, and then--for
just a moment--flung their arms around each other's shoulders in a rare
outward display of their deep mutual affection.

Then Philip held his senior away at arms' length and said, with
masculine candor but with a look of sympathy in his eyes, "Don, you poor
devil, you've been killing yourself over there. Don't tell _me_. I've a
mind to appoint myself your physician and order you to bed for a month."

"Good Lord, do I look as bad as that?" laughed the other. "If I do,
looks are deceitful, for I feel fit as a fiddle. I need only one thing
to make a complete new man of me."

"And that is ...?"

"A secret, at present."

The two seated themselves opposite each other, and Philip continued,
"I've managed to keep myself pretty well posted on the work that you've
been doing, without knowing any of the details of your life--you're a
rotten correspondent. Come, did you have any 'hairbreadth' 'scapes or
moving accidents by field and flood?"

"Nary one. My life has been one dead, monotonous waste."

"Like ... the deuce it has. Come, I've got just ten minutes to stay;
tell me the whole detailed history of your two years and a half. Knowing
your natural verbosity, I should say that it would take you just about
half that time, which will leave me the balance for my own few remarks."

"Five minutes? I could tell you the whole history of my life in that
time. But, before I start, I want to ask you about my little niece,
Muriel? I've just been reading a letter from Ethel, which seems to
indicate that they are rather worried about her; but, when I called her
by long distance, she either couldn't, or wouldn't tell me anything
definite."

"I don't think that there is any real occasion for being disturbed,"
answered Philip, quietly.