"All right," said I.
Still keeping his eyes on the ground, he said, slowly, as if measuring everything well: "I'm going up and draw my time, and will leave for Old Mexico on No. 4 to-night. I want you to write to both these parties and tell them that I have gone there and that you have forwarded both these letters. Don't tell 'em that I went after reading 'em."
"And the other favor, Billy?"
"Read this letter, and see me off to-night."
The letter read:
"Philadelphia, May 1, 1879.
"Dear Brother Will: I want you and Mr. A. to go down to Don Juan Arboles's by the first of June. I will be there then. You must be my best man, as I stand up to marry the sweetest, dearest wild-flower of a woman that ever bloomed in a land of beauty. Don't fail me. Josephine will like you for my sake, and you will love her for your brother.
Henry."
Most engineers' lives are busy ones and full of accident and incident, and having my full share of both, I had almost forgotten all these points about Billy Howell and his Mexican girl, when they were all recalled by a letter from Billy himself. With his letter was a photograph of a family group—a be-whiskered man of thirty-five, a good-looking woman of twenty, but undoubtedly a Mexican, and a curly-headed baby, perhaps a year old. The letter ran:
"City of Mexico, July 21, 1890.