We went inside and got old man Crosby apart and explained it. I wrote my check for a thousand dollars and handed it to him. If Eddie and Rebosa married each other at five he was to turn the money over to them. And then I gave ’em my blessing, and went to wander in the wildwood for a season. I sat on a log and made cogitations on life and old age and the zodiac and the ways of women and all the disorder that goes with a lifetime. I passed myself congratulations that I had probably saved my old friend Mack from his attack of Indian summer. I knew when he got well of it and shed his infatuation and his patent leather shoes, he would feel grateful. “To keep old Mack disinvolved,” thinks I, “from relapses like this, is worth more than a thousand dollars.” And most of all I was glad that I’d made a study of women, and wasn’t to be deceived any by their means of conceit and evolution. It must have been half-past five when I got back home. I stepped in; and there sat old Mack on the back of his neck in his old clothes with his blue socks on the window and the History of Civilisation propped up on his knees. “This don’t look like getting ready for a wedding at six,” I says, to seem innocent. “Oh,” says Mack, reaching for his tobacco, “that was postponed back to five o’clock. They sent me over a note saying the hour had been changed. It’s all over now. What made you stay away so long, Andy?” “You heard about the wedding?” I asks. “I operated it,” says he. “I told you I was justice of the peace. The preacher is off East to visit his folks, and I’m the only one in town that can perform the dispensations of marriage. I promised Eddie and Rebosa a month ago I’d marry ’em. He’s a busy lad; and he’ll have a grocery of his own some day.” “He will,” says I. “There was lots of women at the wedding,” says Mack, smoking up. “But I didn’t seem to get any ideas from ’em. I wish I was informed in the structure of their attainments like you said you was.” “That was two months ago,” says I, reaching up for the banjo. III TELEMACHUS, FRIEND Returning from a hunting trip, I waited at the little town of Los Piños, in New Mexico, for the south-bound train, which was one hour late. I sat on the porch of the Summit House and discussed the functions of life with Telemachus Hicks, the hotel proprietor. Perceiving that personalities were not out of order, I asked him what species of beast had long ago twisted and mutilated his left ear. Being a hunter, I was concerned in the evils that may befall one in the pursuit of game. “That ear,” says Hicks, “is the relic of true friendship.” “An accident?” I persisted. “No friendship is an accident,” said Telemachus; and I was silent.