“Well, that's so!” said Kinney, responding to the sense of the wink. “I'll tell you what, Bartley, I didn't know as you'd speak to me when I rung your bell to-night. But thinks I to myself, 'Dumn it! look here! He can't more'n slam the door in your face, anyway. And you've hankered after him so long,—go and take your chances, you old buzzard!' And so I got your address at the Events office pretty early this morning; and I went round all day screwing my courage up, as old Macbeth says,—or Ritchloo, I don't know which it was,—and at last I did get myself so that I toed the mark like a little man.”
Bartley laughed so that he could hardly get the cork out of the second bottle.
“You see,” said Kinney, leaning forward, and taking Bartley's plump, soft knee between his thumb and forefinger, “I felt awfully about the way we parted that night. I felt bad. I hadn't acted well, just to my own mind, and it cut me to have you refuse my money; it cut me all the worse because I saw that you was partly right; I hadn't been quite fair with you. But I always did admire you, and you know it. Some them little things you used to get off in the old Free Press—well, I could see 't you was smart. And I liked you; and it kind o' hurt me when I thought you'd been makin' fun o' me to that woman. Well, I could see 't I was a dumned old fool, afterwards. And I always wanted to tell you so. And I always did hope that I should be able to offer you that money again, twice over, and get you to take it just to show that you didn't bear malice.” Bartley looked up, with quickened interest. “But I can't do it now, sir,” added Kinney.
“Why, what's happened?” asked Bartley, in a disappointed tone, pouring out his second glass from his second bottle.
“Well, sir,” said Kinney, with a certain reluctance, “I undertook to provision the camp on spec, last winter, and—well, you know, I always run a little on food for the brain,”—Bartley broke into a reminiscent cackle, and Kinney smiled forlornly,—“and thinks I, 'Dumn it, I'll give 'em the real thing, every time.' And I got hold of a health-food circular; and I sent on for a half a dozen barrels of their crackers and half a dozen of their flour, and a lot of cracked cocoa, and I put the camp on a health-food basis. I calculated to bring those fellows out in the spring physically vigorous and mentally enlightened. But my goodness! After the first bakin' o' that flour and the first round o' them crackers, it was all up! Fellows got so mad that I suppose if I hadn't gone back to doughnuts, and sody biscuits, and Japan tea, they'd 'a' burnt the camp down. Of course I yielded. But it ruined me, Bartley; it bu'st me.”
Bartley dropped his arms upon the table, and, hiding his face upon them, laughed and laughed again.
“Well, sir,” said Kinney, with sad satisfaction, “I'm glad to see that you don't need any money from me.” He had been taking another survey of the parlor and the dining-room beyond. “I don't know as I ever saw anybody much better fixed. I should say that you was a success; and you deserve it. You're a smart fellow, Bart, and you're a good fellow. You're a generous fellow.” Kinney's voice shook with emotion.
Bartley, having lifted his wet and flushed face, managed to say: “Oh, there's nothing mean about me, Kinney,” as he felt blindly for the beer bottles, which he shook in succession with an evident surprise at finding them empty.
“You've acted like a brother to me, Bartley Hubbard,” continued Kinney, “and I sha'n't forget it in a hurry. I guess it would about broke my heart, if you hadn't taken it just the way you did to-night. I should like to see the man that didn't use you well, or the woman, either!” said Kinney, with vague defiance. “Though they don't seem to have done so bad by you,” he added, in recognition of Marcia's merit. “I should say that was the biggest part of your luck She's a lady, sir, every inch of her. Mighty different stripe from that Montreal woman that cut up so that night.”
“Oh, Mrs. Macallister wasn't such a scamp, after all,” said Bartley, with magnanimity.