“Braxton!” echoed Jim.
“Sure thing,” replied Reggie, mildly puzzled at the agitation that the name aroused in the two chums. “I’m not spoofing you. Braxton it was, as large as life. The bounder recognized me and started to speak, but I gave him the glassy eye and he thought better of it and passed on. Funny what a little world it is, don’t y’know.”
“It surely is a little world,” replied Jim, as a significant glance passed between him and Joe.
“I glanced back,” Reggie went on, “and saw him getting into a car drawn up at the curb. As classy a machine as I’ve seen, too, for a long time. Built for speed, y’know. If he hadn’t driven off too quickly, I’d have made a note of the make. My own is getting rather old, and I’ve been thinking about replacing it.”
The conversation turned into other channels and finally began to drag a little. The others made no sign of being ready to retire, and at last Reggie woke to the fact that he would have to make the first move. He looked at his watch, remarked that he was rather tired after his journey, and thought that he would “pound the pillow.”
Joe showed him to his room, chatted with him a few minutes, and then returned to the living room where he found Mabel alone, as Clara and Jim had drifted into the dining room. It was the last night the boys would have at home, and the two young couples had a lot to talk about. To Jim especially the time was very precious, for he had made up his mind to ask a very momentous question, and there is little doubt but that Clara knew it was coming and had already made up her mind how it should be answered.
It was an exceedingly agitated Jim that asked Mr. Matson for a private interview the next morning, and it was an exceedingly happy Jim that emerged from the room a few minutes later and announced to the family already seated at the breakfast table that Clara had promised to be his wife. There was a stampede from the chairs, to the imminent danger of the coffee being upset, and Clara was hugged and kissed by Mabel and hugged and kissed and cried over by her mother, while Jim’s hand was almost wrung off by Joe and Reggie in the general jubilation. For Jim was a splendid fellow, a Princeton graduate, a rising man in his chosen calling, and an all round good fellow. And there was no sweeter or prettier girl than Clara in all Riverside, or, as Jim stood ready to maintain, in the whole world.
Needless to say that for the rest of that morning Reggie and Joe had no other masculine society than each could furnish to the other, for Jim had shamelessly abandoned them. Soon Reggie, too, had to chum with himself, as Joe and Mabel had found a sequestered corner and seemed to be dead to the rest of the world.
Just before noon, however, when Mabel had gone in to help Mrs. Matson to prepare lunch, Joe had a chance to talk with Reggie alone.
“Mabel’s looking rippin’, don’t you think?” remarked Reggie, as he caught a glimpse of his sister passing the door of the room in which they sat.