re--Billy is ranching out in Montana. I saw
him in Chicago last spring,--weighed about two hundred pounds,--you
wouldn't know him."

"No, I certainly wouldn't," I murmured to myself.

"And where's Pete?" I said. This was safe ground. There is always a
Pete.

"You mean Billy's brother," he said.

"Yes, yes, Billy's brother Pete. I often think of him."

"Oh," answered the unknown man, "old Pete's quite changed,--settled down
altogether." Here he began to chuckle, "Why, Pete's married!"

I started to laugh, too. Under these circumstances it is always supposed
to be very funny if a man has got married. The notion of old Peter
(whoever he is) being married is presumed to be simply killing. I kept
on chuckling away quietly at the mere idea of it. I was hoping that I
might manage to keep on laughing till the train stopped. I had only
fifty miles more to go. It's not hard to laugh for fifty miles if you
know how.

But my friend wouldn't be content with it.

"I often meant to write to you," he said, his voice falling to a
confidential tone, "especially when I heard of your loss."

I remained quiet. What had I lost? Was it money? And if so, how much?
And why had I lost it? I wondered if it had ruined me or only partly
ruined me.

"One can never get over a loss like that," he continued solemnly.

Evidently I was plumb ruined. But I said nothing and remained under
cover, waiting to draw his fire.

"Yes," the man went on, "death is always sad."

Death! Oh, that was it, was it? I almost hiccoughed with joy. That was
easy. Handling a case of death in these conversations is simplicity
itself. One has only to sit quiet and wait to find out who is dead.

"Yes," I murmured, "very sad. But it has its other side, too."

"Very true, especially, of course, at that age."

"As you say at that age, and after such a life."

"Strong and bright to the last I suppose," he continued, very
sympathetically.

"Yes," I said, falling on sure ground, "able to sit up in bed and smoke
within a few days of the end."

"What," he said, perplexed, "did your grandmother----"

My grandmother! That was it, was it?

"Pardon _me_," I said provoked at my own stupidity; "when I say
_smoked_, I mean able to sit up and be smoked to, a habit she
had,--being read to, and being smoked to,--only thing that seemed to
compose her----"

As I said this I could hear the rattle and clatter of the train running
past the semaphores and switch points and