It was with much pleasure that he studied these neatly printed cards. The first thing he did after receiving them from the printer was to inclose one in a letter to his mother. He had already written her glowing accounts of his growing business, and he felt that this card would give a realism to his pen pictures that he had been unable to impart. He thought long and with pride how sacredly that little bit of pasteboard would be treasured by his parents—how proudly they would show it to their neighbors, and the comments that it would bring forth.
Then he took one over to Bob Hunter, who exhibited no little surprise as he read it admiringly.
Later in the evening he and the newsboy went as usual to visit Tom Flannery, who now, poor boy, seemed to be yielding to that dread disease—consumption. How his face brightened up as he looked at the card with scarcely less pride than if it had been his own!
“I wish I could get into that business, Herbert, when I get well,” said he, turning the card languidly in his thin, emaciated fingers; “you’n’ me’n’ Bob. Yes, I would like that, for we always had such good times together, didn’t we, Bob?”
“Yes, we did, Tom,” answered Bob, tenderly. “I guess as good times as anybody ever had, even if we didn’t have much money.”
“So I think, Bob. I’ve thought of it a good many times while I’ve been sick here—of the detective business and all, and how grand you managed the whole thing. But then you always done everything grand, Bob. None er the boys could do it like you.”
“You do some things much better than I could, Tom,” said Bob.
“No, Bob. I never could do nothing like you.”
“You bear your sickness more patiently than I could, and that is harder to do than anything I ever did,” replied Bob.
“Well, I have to do it, you know, Bob. There ain’t no other way, is there, Herb——”