"Well, Alderman," says Old Man Kimberly after a time, "you certainly know how to live. I'm going to drop in here every day or so, evenings, because I can't get a match at the club without calling a boy, and here you can just reach out and get plenty."
"Come in as often as you like, neighbor," says my boss; and he fills his own pipe and passes the fine-cut.
Sometimes I think, after all, folks is a good deal alike inside, and what makes good in one place will in another. We used these people like we was all out on the Yellow Bull; and here was Old Man Kimberly feeling better than he had in two years and all of 'em glad to come back to our place. Which all happened right soon—and because of them two girls.
"Well," says Katherine's pa after a while, "if I had to choose I believe I'd rather be a ranchman out West than anything in the world. Tell me—what made you sell out and come East to live? Why couldn't you be content where you was at?"
"Well," says my boss, kind of smiling crooked out of the end of his mouth, "we come East to get some of the Better Things."
They looked then, both of 'em, over at the two young girls on the sofa. They was so busy talking they didn't know anybody was looking at 'em. When we was all quiet they both spoke out right at the same time. "I got mine at Madeleine's," Katherine was saying; and Bonnie Bell says: "We fry ours in butter." The Lord only knows what they'd been talking about; but it didn't make no difference.
Well, anyways, we all had quite a fine time, setting there in our ranch room, with the smoky mantelpiece and the old tables and chairs, and the sofa covered with a hide, where the two girls was setting.
By and by they all got up and said they had to go home. Old Man Kimberly he held out his hand to my boss, and they shook hands quite a while together, not saying very much.
"Will you come over some evening?" he ast Old Man Wright.
And he says: