“There’s the very man I have been looking for,” said Guy joyfully. “How very fortunate! Robinson, come here.”
Mr. Jones approached the table at which his partner was sitting, and after looking at him for a moment as if trying to recollect where he had seen him before, suddenly seized him by both hands, and began pulling him about over the floor as if he were overjoyed to meet him.
“Why, Rufus Benjamin, is this you?” he exclaimed. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”
“And neither do you know how glad I am to see you,” returned Guy. “I have been looking for you all the afternoon. Mr. Robinson, permit me to introduce my friend, Mr. Whitney, from Ann Arbor, Michigan.”
“Happy to meet you, Mr. Whitney,” said Jones, extending his hand. “I am always glad to make the acquaintance of any of Benjamin’s friends.”
“I never met him before this evening,” said Whitney, “but I think I have acted the part of a friend in taking him under my charge. When I first saw him he was as pale as a sheet, and trembling as if he had the ague.”
“Well, I was lost,” said Guy, who wondered what Whitney would think if he knew the real cause of his nervousness and excitement. “I have never been alone in a big city like this, you know.”
“I don’t suppose the boy has been outside of the State of Vermont half a dozen times in his life,” said Jones. “How are things prospering in that out-of-the-way part of the world anyhow, Rufus?”
“We’ve had a very good season in our parts, and the crops have done well,” replied Guy. “But, Robinson, why didn’t you meet me at the depot?”
“Why did you not write and tell me when to expect you?” asked Jones.