“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. “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.