d him any favour he was sure he
wanted. At the same time I wished him to be sure; for my life was
wasting in my hands. I was like one from home: all my true interests
summoned me away. I must remind him, besides, that he was now about to
marry and assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might
be even painful to his wife. "O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong there,"
he interjected warmly; "she _does_ appreciate your nature." "So much the
better, then," I continued; and went on to point out that our separation
need not be for long; that, in the way affairs were going, he might join
me in two years with a fortune--small, indeed, for the States, but in
France almost conspicuous; that we might unite our resources, and have
one house in Paris for the winter and a second near Fontainebleau for
summer, where we could be as happy as the day was long, and bring up
little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far from the
money-hunger of the West. "Let me go, then," I concluded; "not as a
deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the march of the Pinkerton men."

So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
interjection) silent. "I have been looking for this, Loudon," said he,
when I had done. "It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm so miserably
selfish. And I believe it's a death-blow to the picnics; for it's idle
to deny that you were the heart and soul of them with your wand and your
gallant bearing, and wit and humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind
of society atmosphere about the thing. But, for all that, you're right,
and you ought to go. You may count on forty dollars a week; and if Depew
City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the least as I
expect, it may be double. But it's forty dollars anyway; and to think
that two years ago you were almost reduced to beggary!"

"I _was_ reduced to it," said I.

"Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!" cried Jim.
"It's the triumphant return I glory in! Think of the master, and that
cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the Depew City boom get on its
legs, and you shall go; and two years later, day for day, I'll shake
hands with you in Paris, with Mamie on my arm, God bless her!"

We talked in this vein far into the night. I was myself so exultant in
my new found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my triumph, so happy in
my happiness, in so war