Despite the evidences of “grouch” which Jerome brought to the dinner table with John Stuart Webster, he was not proof against the latter's amazing vitality and boundless good spirits. The sheer weight of the Websterian optimism and power of enjoying simple things swept all of Jerome's annoyance from him as a brisk breeze dissipates the low-lying fog that hides a pleasant valley, and ere the second cocktail had made its appearance, the president of the Colorado Consolidated Mines Company, Limited, was doing his best to help Webster enjoy this one perfect night snatched from the grim processional of sunrise and sunset that had passed since last he had dallied with the fleshpots—that were to pass ere he should dally with them again according to his peculiar nature and inclination.
Lovingly, lingeringly, Mr. Webster picked his way through the hors d'ouvres, declared against the soup as too filling, mixed the salad after a recipe of his own, served it and consumed it prior to the advent of the entrée, which if not the fashion in the West, at present, has not as yet gone entirely out of fashion. He revelled in breast of pheasant, with asparagus tips, and special baked potato; he thrilled with champagne at twelve dollars the quart, and a tender light came into his quizzical glance at sight of a brick of ice cream in four colours; he cheered for the omelette soufflé. In the end he demanded a tiny cheese fit for active service, cracked himself a peck of assorted nuts, and with a pot of black coffee and the best cigars possible of purchase in Denver, he leaned back at his ease and forgot the theatre in the long-denied delight of yarning with his old friend.
At one o'clock next morning they were still seated in the cosy grill, smoking and talking. Jerome looked at his watch.
“Great grief, Johnny!” he declared. “I must be trotting along. Haven't been out this late in years.”
“It's the shank of the evening, Neddy,” Webster pleaded, “and I'm hungry again. We'll have a nice broiled lobster, with drawn butter—eh, Ned? And another quart of that '98?”
“My liver would never stand it. I'd be in bed for a week,” Jerome protested. “See you at the club to-morrow afternoon before you leave, I presume.”
“If I get through with my shopping in time,” Webster answered, and reluctantly abandoning the lobster and accessories, he accompanied Jerome to the door and saw him safely into a taxicab.
“Sure you won't think it over, Jack, and give up this crazy proposition?” he pleaded at parting.
Webster shook his head. “I sniff excitement and adventure and profit in Sobrante, Neddy, and I've just got to go look-see. I'm like an old burro staked out knee-deep in alfalfa just now. I won't take kindly to the pack—-”
“And like an old burro, you won't be happy until you've sneaked through a hole in the fence to get out into a stubble-field and starve.” Jerome swore halfheartedly and promulgated the trite proverb that life is just one blank thing after the other—an inchoate mass of liver and disappointment!