"Certainly not," said he, cheerfully. "I'd be very glad to give it to you.
But you must remember one thing—it is copyrighted."
"Fire ahead!" I said, with a smile. "I'll respect your copyright. I'll give you a royalty on what I get for the story."
"Very good," he answered. "It was like this. To begin, I must tell you that when I was a boy preparing for college I had for a chum a brilliant fun-loving fellow named Hawley Hicks, concerning whose future various prophecies had been made. His mother often asserted that he would be a great poet; his father thought he was born to be a great general; our head-master at the Scarberry Institute for Young Gentlemen prophesied the gallows. They were all wrong; though, for myself, I think that if he had lived long enough almost any one of the prophecies might have come true. The trouble was that Hawley died at the age of twenty-three. Fifteen years elapsed. I was graduated with high honors at Brazenose, lived a life of elegant leisure, and at the age of thirty-seven broke down in health. That was about a year ago. My uncle, whose heir and constant companion I was, gave me a liberal allowance, and sent me off to travel. I came to America, landed in New York early in September, and set about winning back the color which had departed from my cheeks by an assiduous devotion to such pleasures as New York affords. Two days after my arrival, I set out for an airing at Coney Island, leaving my hotel at four in the afternoon. On my way down Broadway I was suddenly startled at hearing my name spoken from behind me, and appalled, on turning, to see standing with outstretched hands no less a person than my defunct chum, Hawley Hicks."
[Illustration]
"Impossible," said I.
"Exactly my remark," returned Number 5010. "To which I added, 'Hawley
Hicks, it can't be you!'
"'But it is me,' he replied.
"And then I was convinced, for Hawley never was good on his grammar. I looked at him a minute, and then I said, 'But, Hawley, I thought you were dead.'
"'I am,' he answered. 'But why should a little thing like that stand between friends?'
"'It shouldn't, Hawley,' I answered, meekly; 'but it's condemnedly unusual, you know, for a man to associate even with his best friends fifteen years after they've died and been buried.'