It was at this moment that Cousin Egbert appeared in the doorway with four trout from the stream nearby, though how he had managed to snare them I could not think, since he possessed no correct equipment for angling. I fancy I rather overwhelmed him by exclaiming, “Hello, Sour-dough!” since never before had I addressed him in any save a formal fashion, and it is certain I embarrassed him by my next proceeding, which was to grasp his hand and shake it heartily, an action that I could explain no more than he, except that the violence of my self-communion was still upon me and required an outlet. He grinned amiably, then regarded me with a shrewd eye and demanded if I had been drinking.
“This,” I said; “I am drunk with this,” and held the card up to him. But when he took it interestedly he merely read the obverse side which I had not observed until now. “Go to Epstein’s for Everything You Wear,” it said in large type, and added, “The Square Deal Mammoth Store.”
“They carry a nice stock,” he said, still a bit puzzled by my tone, “though I generally trade at the Red Front.” I turned the card over for him and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a point of view peculiarly his own. “I don’t see,” he began, “what right they got to rake up all that stuff about people that’s dead and gone. Who cares what their folks was!” And he added, “‘Horace was the son of a shopkeeper’—Horace who?” Plainly the matter did not excite him, and I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items had meant to me.
“I mean to say, I’m glad to be here with you,” I said.
“I knew you’d like it,” he answered. “Everything is nice here.”
“America is some country,” I said.
“She is, she is,” he answered. “And now you can bile up a pot of tea in your own way while I clean these here fish for sapper.”
I made the tea. I regret to say there was not a tea cozy in the place; indeed the linen, silver, and general table equipment were sadly deficient, but in my reckless mood I made no comment.
“Your tea smells good, but it ain’t got no kick to it,” he observed over his first cup. “When I drench my insides with tea I sort of want it to take a hold.” And still I made no effort to set him right. I now saw that in all true essentials he did not need me to set him right. For so uncouth a person he was strangely commendable and worthy.
As we sipped our tea in companionable silence, I busy with my new and disturbing thoughts, a long shout came to us from the outer distance. Cousin Egbert brightened.