Tate, bending over a cask of beer, raised himself, and gave Billy the compliment of a long, hard stare.
"Your voice changing, Billy?" he asked blandly. "Gosh! you've growed up terrible suddint. What you doing home in the middle of the season?"
"Got—sick," Billy muttered quite truthfully. "Any letters for Joyce?"
"I don't keep letters on this side, son."
Tate felt compelled to cater to what he recognized in Billy. "And whoever heard of Joyce having letters? If you mean Gaston's mail she's sent for, then I reply straight and honest, and you can tell her—I know my business!
"When Gaston calls for his mail, he gets it. When he wants Joyce to have it—he's got to send order for same. The Government down to Washington, D.C., knowed who it was selecting when it chose Leon Tate for Postmaster.
"Billy, you've changed more in a few months than any one I ever seed. You—" he hesitated, and grinned foolishly—"you feel—like a drink o' anything?"
The subtle compliment to his manhood thrilled Billy; but oh! if Tate had only known to what that manhood was due.
"No, thank you," Billy replied, pulling his trousers up ecstatically. "I don't want nothing to drink—to-day. But won't you please look and see if there ain't a letter for Joyce—with her name to it?"
Tate walked around the screen, followed by Billy, and began fumbling in the row of slits that answered for letter-boxes.