from Death Valley might have been observed standing before a cheval glass looking long and earnestly at the reflection of his middle-aged person, the while he marked the fit of his new raiment.
Let us describe these habiliments, alleging as an excuse for dwelling with emphasis upon the subject the fact that John Stuart Webster was all dressed up for the first time in three long, labour-ridden years, and was tremendously glad of it. Hark to this inventory. There were the silken hose and underwear next his well-scrubbed skin; then there was the white pleated linen shirt—a shirt so expensive and exquisite that Mr. Webster longed to go somewhere and shoot a game of billiards, in order that thus he might have an excuse to remove his coat and exhibit that shirt to the gaze of the multitude. His collar irked him slightly, but he had been assured by the clerk who sold it to him “that it was strictly in vogue.” His gray silk Ascot tie was held in a graceful puff by a scarfpin with a head of perfect crystal prettily shot with virgin gold; his black afternoon coat enveloped his wide shoulders and flanked his powerful neck with the perfection of the epidermis on a goose in the pink of condition; his gray striped trousers broke exactly right over his new “patent leather” shoes. The tout ensemble, as the gentleman himself might have expressed it had he possessed a working knowledge of French (which he did not), was perfect.
He “shot” his cuffs and strutted backward and forward, striving to observe his spinal column over his right shoulder, for he was in a transport of delight as truly juvenile as that on the never-to-be-forgotten day when he had attained to the dignity of his first pair of long trousers. He observed to himself that it was truly remarkable, the metamorphosis nine tailors and a talkative barber can make in an old sour-dough.
Presently, convinced that he was the glass of fashion and the mould of form, Mr. Webster took up a smart lancewood stick and a pair of new gray suede gloves and descended to the lobby of Denver's most exclusive hotel. He paused at the cigar stand long enough to fill his case with three-for-a-half perfectos and permit the young woman in charge to feast her world-weary eyes on his radiant person (which she did, classifying and tabulating him instantly as a millionaire mining man from Nevada). After this he lighted a cigar and stepped forth into Seventeenth Street, along which he strolled until he came to a certain building into the elevator of which he entered and was whisked to the twelfth floor, where he alighted and found himself before a wide portal which bore in gold letters the words: Engineers' Club.
The Engineers' Club was the closest approach to a home that John Stuart Webster had known for twenty years, and so he paused just within the entrance to perform the time-honoured ceremonial of home-coming. Over the arched doorway leading to the lounge hung a large bronze gong such as is used in mines, and from the lever of the gong-clapper depended a cord which Webster seized and jerked thrice—thus striking the signal known to all of the mining fraternity—the signal to hoist! Only those members who had been sojourning in distant parts six months or more were privileged thus to disturb the peace and dignity of the Engineers' Club, the same privilege, by the way, carrying with it the obligation of paying for the materials shortly to be hoisted!
Having announced the return of a prodigal, our hero stepped to the door of the lounge and shouted:
“John Stuart Webster, E. M.”
The room was empty. Not a single member was present to greet the wanderer and accept of his invitation!
“Home was never like this when I was a boy,” he complained to the servant at the telephone exchange. “Times must be pretty good in the mining game in Colorado when everybody has a job that keeps him out of Denver.”
The servant rose and essayed a raid on his hat and stick, but Mr. Webster, who was impatient at thus finding himself amidst old scenes, fended him away and said “Shoo fly!” Then he crossed the empty lounge and ascended the stairs leading to the card room, at the entrance of which he paused, leaning on his stick—in unconscious imitation of a Sicilian gentleman posing for his photograph after his first payday in America—swept that room with a wistful eye and sighed because nothing had changed in three long years.
Save for the slight job of kalsomining which Father Time had done on the edges of the close-cropped Websterian moustache, the returned prodigal might have stepped out of the Club but yesterday. He would not have taken the short end of a modest bet that even a fresh log had been placed on the fire or that the domino-players over against the wall had won or lost a drink or two and then resumed playing—although perchance there were a few more gray hairs in the thickly thatched head of old Neddy Jerome, sitting in his favourite seat by the window and turning the cards in his eternal game of solitaire, in blissful ignorance that John Stuart Webster stood within the portals of home and awaited the fatted calf.
“I'll hypnotize the old pelican into looking up,” Webster soliloquized, and forthwith bent a beetling gaze upon the player. For as many as five seconds he strove to demonstrate the superiority of mind over solitaire; then, despairing of success, he struck the upholstery of an adjacent chair a terrific blow with his stick—the effect of which was to cause everybody in the room to start and to conceal Mr. Webster momentarily in a cloud of dust, the while in a bellowing baritone he sang:
His father was a hard-rock miner;
He comes from my home town——
“Jack Webster! The devil's own kin!” shouted Neddy Jerome. He swept the cards into a heap and waddled across the room to meet this latest assailant of the peace and dignity of the Engineers' Club. “You old, worthless, ornery, no-good son of a lizard! I've never been so glad to see a man that didn't owe me money.” He seized Webster's hand in both of his and wrung it affectionately. “Jack,” he continued, “I've been combing the whole civilized world for you, for a month, at least. Where the devil have you been?”
John Stuart Webster beamed happily upon his friend. “Well, Neddy, you old stocking-knitter,” he replied quizzically, “since that is the case, I'm not surprised at your failure to find me. You've known me long enough to have remembered to confine your search to the uncivilized reaches.”
“Well, you're here, at any rate, and I'm happy. Now you'll settle down.”
“Hardly, Neddy. I'm young yet, you know—only forty. Still a real live man and not quite ready to degenerate into a card-playing, eat-drink-and-be-merry, die-of-inanition, sink-to-oblivion, and go-to-hell fireplace spirit!” And he prodded Jerome in the short ribs with a tentative thumb that caused the old man to wince. He turned to greet the halfdozen card-players who had looked up at his noisy entrance—deciding that since they were strangers to him they were mere half-baked young whelps but lately graduated from some school of mines—and permitted his friend to drag him downstairs to the deserted lounge, where Jerome paused in the middle of the room and renewed his query:
“Johnny, where have you been?”
“Lead me to a seat, O thou of little manners,” Webster retorted. “Here, boy! Remove my property and guard it well. I will stay and disport myself.” And he suffered himself to be dispossessed of his hat, gloves, and stick. “It used to be the custom here,” he resumed, addressing Jerome, “that when one of the Old Guard returned, he was obliged to ask his friends to indicate their poison——”
“Where have you been, I ask?”
“Out in Death Valley, California, trying to pry loose a fortune.”
“Did you pry it?”
John Stuart Webster arched his eyebrows in mock reproach. “And you can see my new suit, Neddy, my sixteen-dollar, made-to-order shoes, and my horny hoofs encased in silken hose—and ask that question? Freshly shaved and ironed and almost afraid to sit down and get wrinkles
