of old hay on the side of a hill. The stary, faded out blue
eyes wa'n't just like any I could remember, either, and I'm gen'rally
strong on that point.

"You've called my number, all right," says I; "but, as for returnin' the
compliment, you've got me going, neighbor. How do you think I'm
looking?"

He makes a weak stab at springin' a smile, about the ghastliest attempt
at that sort of thing I ever watched, and then he shrugs his shoulders.
"I--I couldn't say about your looks," says he. "I recognized you by your
voice. Perhaps you won't remember me at all. I'm Dexter Bean."

"What!" says I. "Not Beany, that used to do architectin' on the top floor
over the studio?"

"Yes," says he.

"And you've forgot my mug so soon?" says I.

"Oh, no!" says he, speakin' up quick. "I haven't forgotten. But I can't
see very well now, you know. In fact, I--I'm---- Well, it's almost night
time with me, Shorty," and by the way he chokes up I can tell how hard it
is for him to get out even that much.

"You don't mean," says I, "that--that you----"

He nods, puts his hands up to his face, and turns his head for a minute.

Well, say, I've had lumps come in my throat once in a while before on
some account or other; but I never felt so much like I'd swallowed a
prize punkin as I did just then. Most night time! Course, you hear of
lots of cases, and you know there's asylums where such people are taken
care of and taught to weave cane bottoms for chairs; but I tell you when
you get right up against such a case, a party you've known and liked, and
it's handed to you sudden that he's almost in the stick tappin'
class--well, it's apt to get you hard. I know it did me. Why, I didn't
know any more what to do or say than a goat. But it was my next.

"Well, well, Beany, old boy!" says I, slidin' an arm across his shoulder.
"This is all news to me. Let's get over in the shade and talk this thing
over."

"I--I'd like to, Shorty," says he.

So we camps down under a tree next to the fence, and he gives me the
story. As he talks, too, it all comes back to me about the first time
some of them boys from up stairs towed him down to the studio. He'd
drifted in from some Down East crossroads, where he'd taken a course in
mechanical drawin' and got the idea that he was an architect. And a
greener Rube than him I never expect to see. It was a wonder some
milliner hadn't grabbed him and sewed him on a hat before he got to
42d-st.

Maybe that gang of