It was the easiest way out of what appeared to be the beginning of an unpleasant entanglement, and I told him that he might proceed with his "write-up." It was a sort of bribery, the purchase of his good opinion in the hope of securing his silence, for I knew that there must be war, and perhaps a complete change of geographical lines, so far as I was concerned, if the newspaper should offensively associate the Senator and the playhouse. But as I sat there, the subject of a "pleasant interview"--meeting smile with smile--I actually ached to kick that red gargoyle down the stairs. "Well," he said, blowing the cigar stub out of his mouth and letting it fall where it might, "I'll get back to work. Come over sometime." "Thank you. I may see more of you when the season opens." "Guess that's right. Haven't got a cut of yourself, have you?" "No, and I don't care for one." "You're wrong there; good cut's a first-rate thing--catches the women, and I want to tell you that unless you catch the women you don't catch anybody. Well, good day." Almost as soothing as a melody was his passing footstep down the stairs. But he halted, and I heard him talking to someone who evidently was coming up. I was afraid that he had turned to come back, and I stood in a tremor of dread, when in stepped old Zack Mason, the steamboat pilot. "Hah, united we stood and divided we went up!" he cried, grasping my hand. "How are you?--first-rate, I know. Oh, this climate will bring a man out of the kinks if he isn't killed instantly. All this atmosphere needs is a few minutes' start. A man can grow a set of new lungs down here. How are you, anyway? Didn't hurt me much--made a trip since then on a snag-boat. Tickled to death to see you again. How are you, anyway?" During all this time he held me with a grip so tight as to assure me that not even an explosion could blow us apart. And whenever I attempted to tell him how I was, or to impress him with my share of the pleasure derived from our meeting, he gripped me tighter, to hold me under the outpour of his congratulations. "Felt like a brother had left me that day when you were snatched out of my hand. Said to myself, as I flew through the air, 'he's got a little bit the start of me and I don't believe I'll ever see him again.' And last night, when I got home and heard you were around all right, I went straight over to old Jim Bradley's and swallowed a drink as long as a pelican's neck. I want to tell you that Jim's got the stuff right there in his house--been here ever since the Mississippi River was a creek; and he's got licker older than Adam's off ox. And I'll tell you what we'll do this minute--we'll go right over there and take a snort as loud as the sneeze of a hippopotamus." By this time I had forced him back into his chair, but he showed such a keenness to get at me again that I had to remind him that I had been but a short time out of bed.