So thinking, and hardly able to contain himself for joy, Myles gathered together the papers he had brought away from the Phonograph office and prepared to carry them back to it. In his own happiness he did not forget the anxiety of those at home, and his first care upon leaving the house was to hunt up a telegraph station. From it he sent a message containing the joyful news to his mother. Then he hurried down town.
When he entered the city-room of the Phonograph Mr. Brown handed him the key to his desk as a matter of course. Mr. Haxall looked up from the reading of his morning papers long enough to shake hands with him and welcome him back. Nobody else knew that only two days before he had been dismissed in disgrace. The other reporters, most of whom supposed he had just returned from Mountain Junction, crowded about to congratulate him upon the manner in which he had saved the train with the 50th Regiment on board, and to ply him with questions as to the details of that affair. To those who considered that he had snubbed them on Saturday he made ample apologies, and explained that his apparent rudeness was caused by a piece of bad news of which he had then just heard.
The first to learn of and congratulate him upon his new prospects was his stanch friend Rolfe, who had that morning returned from Chicago, and who, while shaking hands with him, said:
“Now, old fellow, you will have a chance to show what you are made of. As a space man you will reap an instant pecuniary reward from every successful effort you make, exactly as any man does who is in business for himself. You also occupy the curious position that I do not believe exists except among newspaper reporters on space, of being under orders and at the same time able to render yourself absolutely independent of them.”
Myles was so happy, and the future seemed so bright and secure to him, surrounded as he was by friendly faces, that he read Billings’ telegram with only a vague wonder as to what it could mean, and without a trace of anxiety. Ben Watkins seemed so very far away, and to belong so entirely to some remote period of his life, that Myles could only think of him with pity and contempt. He had it in his power to inflict a serious injury upon Ben Watkins, if he chose, by simply telling of that scene before the safe in the superintendent’s office; but what harm could Ben Watkins do him? None. Absolutely none. He had been guilty of but one wrong that Ben knew of, and that had already been amply atoned for and forgiven.
As he reached this conclusion Myles lifted his eyes to those of a stranger who stood beside him, and who asked:
“Is this Mr. Manning?”
“Yes,” replied Myles, “it is.”
“Mr. Myles Manning?”
“Yes, that is my name. What can I do for you?”