air in quite the old suppressive
fashion of former days. Yes; it was the same Stacy that Barker looked
at, albeit his brown beard was now closely cropped around his determined
mouth and jaw in a kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs
already attuned to the rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still
more rigorous sombreness of color.

"Barker boy," he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes which
the younger partner remembered, "I don't encourage stag dancing among my
young men during bank hours, and you'll please to remember that we are
not on Heavy Tree Hill"--

"Where," broke in Barker enthusiastically, "we were only overlooked by
the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the nearest voice
that came to you was quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and nearly
a mile by the trail."

"And was generally an oath!" said Stacy. "But you're in San Francisco
NOW. Where are you stopping?" He took up a pencil and held it over a
memorandum pad awaitingly.

"At the Brook House. It's"--

"Hold on! 'Brook House,'" Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. "And for
how long?"

"Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty"--

Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then
wrote down, "'Day or two.' Wife with you?"

"Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!" he went on, with a laugh, knocking
aside the remonstrating pencil, "you must listen! He's just the
sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know what we're going to
christen him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good names, aren't
they? And then it perpetuates the dear old friendship."

Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote "Wife and child S. D. B.," and
leaned back in his chair. "Now, Barker," he said briefly, "I'm coming
to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN we'll talk Heavy Tree Hill,
wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'm all for business. Have you any
with me?"

Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out
of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager
confidence and said, "Certainly; that's just what it is--business. Lord!
Stacy, I'm ALL business now. I'm in everything. And I bank with you,
though perhaps you don't know it; it's in your Branch at Marysville. I
didn't want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! you
don't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else while you are in the
business--checks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you