n--you
remember--you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, and then came
back and burst upon us like this to tell us you were a beggar."

"Yes," laughed Barker, "and all the while you fellows were holding four
aces up your sleeve in the shape of the big strike."

"And you, Georgy, old boy," returned Demorest, swinging Barker's two
hands backwards and forwards, "were holding a royal flush up yours in
the shape of your engagement to Kitty."

The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank laugh
was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment towards the
window, and a swift and almost involuntary glance passed between the
others. But he almost as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to
Demorest again, and said eagerly, "Yes, dear Kitty! You shall see her
and the baby to-morrow."

Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and for
some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at
the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They recalled every
detail of their old life; eagerly and impetuously recounted the old
struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the strange importance of
schoolboys to unimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth
of their own; roared over old jokes with a delight they had never since
given to new; reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense
enjoyment; grew grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names,
trifling dates, useless distances, ineffective records, and feeble
chronicles of their domestic economy. It was the thoughtful and
melancholy Demorest who remembered the exact color and price paid for
a certain shirt bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envy of his
companions; it was the financial magnate, Stacy, who could inform them
what were the exact days they had saleratus bread and when flapjacks;
it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who recalled with unheard-of
accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the full name of the
Indian squaw who assisted at their washing. Even then they were almost
feverishly loath to leave the subject, as if the Past, at least, was
secure to them still, and they were even doubtful of their own free and
full accord in the Present. Then they slipped rather reluctantly
into their later experiences, but with scarcely the same freedom or
spontaneity; and it was noticeable that these records were elicited from
Barker by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker for