“Well, I wanted to get away, and so did Sim, I guess; but the crowd wouldn't let us. We'd got to have a drink; hogsheads of drinks. That was the best joke on Eddie Lewisburg that ever was. Come on! We MUST come on! Whee! Wow!
“I don't know how it would have ended if some one hadn't butted head first through the mob and grabbed me by the shoulder. I was ready to fight by this time, and maybe I'd have begun to fight if the chap who grabbed me hadn't been a few inches short of seven foot high. And, besides that, I knew him. 'Twas Sam Holden, a young feller I knew when he boarded here one summer. His wife boarded here, too, only she wa'n't his wife then. Her name was Grace Hargrave and she was a fine girl. Maybe you remember 'em, Sol?”
The depot master nodded.
“I remember 'em well,” he said. “Liked 'em both—everybody did.”
“Yes. Well, he knew us and was glad to see us.
“'It IS you!' he sings out. 'By George! I thought it was when I came on the floor just now. My! but I'm glad to see you. And Mr. Phinney, too! Bully! Clear out and let 'em alone, you Indians.'
“The crowd didn't want to let us alone, but Sam got us clear somehow, and out of the Exchange Buildin' and into the back room of a kind of restaurant. Then he gets chairs for us, orders cigars, and shakes hands once more.
“'To think of seein' you two in New York!' he says, wonderin'. 'What are you doin' here? When did you come? Tell us about it.'
“So we told him about our pleasure cruise, and what had happened to us so fur. It seemed to tickle him 'most to death.
“'Grace and I are keepin' house, in a modest way, uptown,' says Sam, 'and she'll be as glad to see you as I am. You're comin' up to dinner with me to-night, and you're goin' to make us a visit, you know,' he says.