“I didn’t say anybody take her to court-house, Sam; but she did have a case. I don’t remember it exactly, but I think she brought up a girl.”
“It can’t be so,” said Jones, “for I never hear anything about it. It must be somebody else.”
“Perhaps so,” said the Professor, who had no special object to gain by contending he was right, and who knew also that there might be other Susan Proudleighs in Kingston besides the one he remembered having read about.
“Yes, y’u can make a mistake about a name,” said Septimus, “but you can’t make any mistake about this comet. The newspaper say it have sanatogen in its tail, an’ sanatogen is not a thing to fool with.”
“Cyanogen,” corrected the Professor; “sanatogen is a tonic—something you drink.”
“Well, whatever y’u call it, it’s a dangerous thing. However, let us hope for the best. Jones, old man, if we even don’t meet again, let’s have a drink before we part.”
He led the way to the bar, and each of them ordered the liquor he most preferred. It was a farewell glass, and the sincerity with which Jones’s health was drunk showed that his friends really liked him. Under their hilarity there was emotion concealed. Which of them could know for certain that he would ever see Samuel Josiah again?
This last glass was the signal for the breaking up of the party.
Jones lived to the west of the city, and the Professor said he was going that way. So they bade the other fellows good-bye at the tavern door, and started homewards.
They had hardly gone fifteen yards when an elderly, respectable-looking woman boldly accosted them; she spoke to Jones, calling him by name: could she speak to him for a moment?