“You're a mighty good fellow, Marcia!” cried Bartley, kissing her over the top of the baby's head as she took it from him. “And I'm not half good enough for you. You never forget a benefit. Nor an injury either,” he added, with a laugh. “And I'm afraid that I forget one about as easily as the other.”
Marcia's eyes suffused themselves at this touch of self-analysis which, coming from Bartley, had its sadness; but she said nothing, and he was eager to escape and get back to their guest. He told her he should go out with Kinney, and that she was not to sit up, for they might be out late.
In his pride, he took Kinney down to the Events office, and unlocked it, and lit the gas, so as to show him the editorial rooms; and then he passed him into one of the theatres, where they saw part of an Offenbach opera; after that they went to the Parker House, and had a New York stew. Kinney said he must be off by the Sunday-night train, and Bartley thought it well to concentrate as many dazzling effects upon him as he could in the single evening at his disposal. He only regretted that it was not the club night, for he would have liked to take Kinney round, and show him some of the fellows.
“But never mind,” he said. “I'm going to have one of them dine with us to-morrow, and you'll see about the best of the lot.”
“Well, sir,” observed Kinney, when they had got back into Bartley's parlor, and he was again drinking in its prettiness in the subdued light of the shaded argand burner, “I hain't seen anything yet that suits me much better than this.”
“It isn't bad,” said Bartley. He had got up a plate of crackers and two bottles of tivoli, and was opening the first. He offered the beaded goblet to Kinney.
“Thank you,” said Kinney. “Not any. I never do.”
Bartley quaffed half of it in tolerant content. “I always do. Find it takes my nerves down at the end of a hard week's work. Well, now, tell me some thing about yourself. What are you going to do in Illinois?”
“Well, sir, I've got a friend out there that's got a coal mine, and he thinks he can work me in somehow. I guess he can: I've tried pretty much everything. Why don't you come out there and start a newspaper? We've got a town that's bound to grow.”
It amused Bartley to hear Kinney bragging already of a town that he had never seen. He winked a good-natured disdain over the rim of the goblet which he tilted on his lips. “And give up my chances here?” he said, as he set the goblet down.