“Thanks—for both,” sniffed Calderwell, with a reproachful glance, helping himself. “Your good judgment in some matters is still unimpaired, I see,” he observed, tapping the little gilded band which had told him the cigar was an old favorite. “As to other matters, however,—you're wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick, and I have been working.”
“So? Well, I'm told they have very good specialists here. Some one of them ought to hit your case. Still—how long has it been running?” Arkwright's face showed only grave concern.
“Oh, come, let up, Arkwright,” snapped Calderwell, striking his match alight with a vigorous jerk. “I'll admit I haven't ever given any special indication of an absorbing passion for work. But what can you expect of a fellow born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth? And that's what I was, according to Bertram Henshaw. According to him again, it's a wonder I ever tried to feed myself; and perhaps he's right—with my mouth already so full.”
“I should say so,” laughed Arkwright.
“Well, be that as it may. I'm going to feed myself, and I'm going to earn my feed, too. I haven't climbed a mountain or paddled a canoe, for a year. I've been in Chicago cultivating the acquaintance of John Doe and Richard Roe.”
“You mean—law?”
“Sure. I studied it here for a while, before that bout of ours a couple of years ago. Billy drove me away, then.”
“Billy!—er—Mrs. Henshaw?”
“Yes. I thought I told you. She turned down my tenth-dozen proposal so emphatically that I lost all interest in Boston and took to the tall timber again. But I've come back. A friend of my father's wrote me to come on and consider a good opening there was in his law office. I came on a month ago, and considered. Then I went back to pack up. Now I've come for good, and here I am. You have my history to date. Now tell me of yourself. You're looking as fit as a penny from the mint, even though you have discarded that 'lovely' brown beard. Was that a concession to—er—Mary Jane?”
Arkwright lifted a quick hand of protest.