"Ho, ho! That's one on you, Hen, isn't it? Didn't know why I invited you here to-night, did you?"
"No; couldn't guess. Thought it must be something special, though."
"So it is, and I expected to have something special to drink, too. Confound that express company! It's as slow as cold molasses. I ordered something good for to-night, and it was to have been here before this."
"Going to drink the health of your special friends, are you?" Whittles queried, looking quizzically at the lawyer.
"To one friend only to-night, Hen. He's our mutual friend—a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, as the Good Book says, and whose tongue is as sharp as a razor, and stings like a hornet. That's the friend whose health we are going to drink to-night."
"I know of only one person who answers to your description," Whittles replied, "and that's Abner Andrews, of Ash Point. But he's no friend of ours."
"You're mistaken, Hen. He's my special friend, and yours, too, for that matter."
"Mine! H'm I guess you're astray there."
"Not at all. Didn't he offer a thousand dollars for that Orphanage?"
"A thousand be hanged! He offered it, but that's as far as it goes. He'll never pay a cent."