"I have a few old friends scattered around some place, I suppose. I have no relatives in the world except a male cousin about my own age, and I never communicated with him after going to Honduras. There was a girl once——"
"There always is a girl," Shepley said softly, as Prale ceased speaking.
"But that ended ten years ago," Prale continued. "I stand alone—with my million."
"You advertise that fact, my boy, and there'll be girls by the regiment looking up your telephone number."
"And the right one wouldn't be in the crowd," Prale said, the smile leaving his face again.
"Well, you are in for a fine time, at least," Rufus Shepley told him. "There have been quite a few changes in New York in the past ten years. Yes, quite a few changes! There are a few new boarding houses scattered around, and a new general store or two, and the street cars run out farther than they used to."
"Oh, I've kept up to date after a fashion," Sidney Prale said, laughing once more. "I'm ready to appreciate the changes, but I suppose I will be surprised. The New York papers get down to Honduras now and then, you know."
"I've always understood," Shepley said, "that there are certain gentlemen in that part of the world who watch the New York papers very closely."
"Meaning the men who are fugitives from justice, I see," said Prale.
"I didn't mean anything personal, of course."