Out of a Labyrinth

by Lawrence L. Lynch

But Dwight was equal to the occasion. Before I could drop or withdraw my hand, he seized it in his own large palm, and shook it heartily, the most jovial of smiles lighting his face meanwhile.

"You've got the advantage of me, just now," he said, in the same loud, cheery tone we had heard from the kitchen, "but I'm glad to see you, all the same. Larkins! hallo, Larkins, how are you," and, dropping my hand as suddenly as he had grasped it, Dwight turned to salute Larkins.

When their greeting was over, I stammered forth my explanation.

I had made a mistake. Mr. DeWhyte must pardon it. Hearing at Clyde that a Mr. DeWhyte was living in Amora, and that he was engaged in the sale of sewing machines, I had supposed it to be none other than an old school friend of that name, who, when last I heard of him, was general agent for a city machine manufactory. It was a mistake which I trusted Mr. DeWhyte would pardon. I then presented my card and retired within myself.

But the genial Dwight was once more "happy to know me." Shifting his violin, which he had brought into the room, from underneath his left elbow, he rested it upon his knee, and launched into a series of questions concerning my suppositious friend, which resulted in the discovery that their names, though similar, were not the same, and that the existence of a Mr. Edward DeWhyte and of Ed. Dwight, both following the same occupation, was not after all a very remarkable coincidence, although one liable to cause mistakes like the one just made by me.

After this we were more at our ease. I proffered my cigar case, and both Larkins and Dwight accepted weeds, Dwight remarking, as he arose to take some matches from a card-board match safe under the chimney, that, "smoking was permitted in the parlor," adding, as he struck a match on the sole of his boot, that he "believed in comfort, and would not board where they were too high-toned to allow smoking."

Conversation now became general; rather Larkins, Dwight, and the two hitherto silent "boarders" talked, and I listened, venturing only an occasional remark, and studying my "subject" with secret interest.

"When are you comin' our way again, Dwight?" asked Larkins, as, after an hour's chat, we rose to take our leave.

"I don't know, Lark.; I don't know," said Dwight, inserting his hands in his pockets and jingling some loose coin or keys as he replied. "I don't think I'll make many more trips."