Mrs. Bowman blushed again, and, with a side glance at the frowning Mr. Clark, called her visitor's attention to him and introduced them. The gentlemen shook hands stiffly.
“Any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” said Mr. Tucker, with a patronizing air. “How are you, sir?”
Mr. Clark replied that he was well, and, after some hesitation, said that he hoped he was the same. Mr. Tucker took a chair and, leaning back, stroked his huge mustache and devoured the widow with his eyes. “Fancy seeing you again!” said the latter, in some embarrassment. “How did you find me out?”
“It's a long story,” replied the visitor, “but I always had the idea that we should meet again. Your photograph has been with me all over the world. In the backwoods of Canada, in the bush of Australia, it has been my one comfort and guiding star. If ever I was tempted to do wrong, I used to take your photograph out and look at it.”
“I s'pose you took it out pretty often?” said Mr. Clark, restlessly. “To look at, I mean,” he added, hastily, as Mrs. Bowman gave him an indignant glance.
“Every day,” said the visitor, solemnly. “Once when I injured myself out hunting, and was five days without food or drink, it was the only thing that kept me alive.”
Mr. Clark's gibe as to the size of the photograph was lost in Mrs. Bowman's exclamations of pity.
“I once lived on two ounces of gruel and a cup of milk a day for ten days,” he said, trying to catch the widow's eye. “After the ten days—”
“When the Indians found me I was delirious,” continued Mr. Tucker, in a hushed voice, “and when I came to my senses I found that they were calling me 'Amelia.'”
Mr. Clark attempted to relieve the situation by a jocose inquiry as to whether he was wearing a mustache at the time, but Mrs. Bowman frowned him down. He began to whistle under his breath, and Mrs. Bowman promptly said, “H'sh!”