choenstrom minister taught me Greek and was my bosom
frien'----"

He stopped with his heart in his ankles. Lolling on the bed, grinning,
waving a cigarette, was Bill McGolwey, proprietor of the Old Home Lunch,
of Schoenstrom, Minnesota.

"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy where the heck did you come from?"
stammered the deposed aristocrat to his bosom friend Bill.

"You old lemon-pie-faced, lollygagging, flap-footed, crab-nosed son of
misery, gee, but it's good to see you, Milt!"

Bill was off the bed, wringing Milt's hand with simple joy, with perfect
faith that in finding his friend all the troubles of life were over. And
Milt was gloomily discovering the art of diplomacy. Bill was his friend,
yes, but----

It was hard enough to carry his own self.

He pictured Jeff Saxton leering at the door, and while he pounded Bill's
shoulder, and called him the name which, west of Chicago, is the token
of hatred and of extreme gladness at meeting, he discovered that some
one had stolen his stomach and left a piece of ice in its place.

They settled down on bed and chair, Bill's ears red with joy, while Milt
demanded:

"How the deuce did you get here?"

"Well, tell you, old hoss. Schoenstrom got so darn lonely after you
left, and when Ben and Heinie got your address and bought the garage,
think's I, lez go off on a little bum."

Milt was realizing--and hating himself for realizing--that Bill's face
was dirty, his hair linty, the bottoms of his trousers frayed masses of
mud, while Bill chuckled:

"I figured out maybe I could get a job here in a restaurant, and you and
me could room together. I sold out my good will in the Old Home Lunch
for a hundred bucks. I was going to travel swell, riding the cushions.
But Pete Swanson wanted me to go down to the Cities first, and we run
into some pretty swift travelers in Minneapolis, and a couple of
girls--saaaaaaay, kid, some class!"

Bill winked, and Milt--Milt was rather sick. He knew Bill's conception
of class in young women. Was this the fellow he had liked so well? These
the ideas which a few months ago he had taken as natural and extremely
amusing?

"And I got held up in an alley off Washington Avenue, and they got the
last twenty bones off'n me, and I was flatter 'n a pancake. So I says
'ish kabibble,' and I sneaks onto the blind baggage, and bums my way
West. You'd 'a' died laughing to seen me throwing my feet for grub. Oh,
I'm some panhandler! There was one _Frau_ sicke