He led me into a room that looked like a library, and proceeded to light the lamp.
“Everybody’s gone to bed,” he said, as he turned the wick up, “and I was just going myself. We’re early to bed and early to rise here. Take a seat, Mr.—let me see, you did not tell me your name.” He smiled at me kindly. In the smile and the expression of his face anyone could see that he was a man with a large heart.
“Warnock—Dick Warnock.”
“Ah! sit here, Mr. Warnock, and before you tell me your news let me get you something to eat; I daresay you’re hungry.”
He went out of the room, and I glanced around at the pictures on the wall, the books in the shelves, and the delicately arranged flowers on the table. It was the room of a successful man with refined tastes, and in many places there were gentle evidences of a feminine hand.
In a few minutes he returned, bearing a tray with various things to eat and drink, and while I was partaking of these he talked about his old friend Crichton, recalling incidents of the goldfields.
When I had finished my meal, and had tuned my pipe to his cigar, I leaned back in my chair and said: “Now to my news.”
“All in good time,” he replied with a pleasant smile; “is it good or bad?”
“It is good, but I have no doubt it will startle you, even to the extent of leading you to doubt my sanity, or at least my story.”
He raised his eyebrows and looked steadily at me for a while; then, blowing forth a cloud of smoke, he remarked quietly: “All right. I’m not easily startled. Proceed.”