“I guess it'd seem rather fresh for me to tell you how I shall miss you,” he said. “I said that first day that I didn't know how to tell you how I--well, how I felt about you giving a mutt like me that big chance. You never thought I didn't know how little I did know, did you?” he inquired almost anxiously. “That was it--that you did know and that you had the backbone and the good spirits to go in and win,” Galton replied. “I'm a tired man, and good spirits and good temper seem to me about the biggest assets a man can bring into a thing. I shouldn't have dared do it when I was your age. You deserved the Victoria Cross,” he added, chuckling. “What's the Victoria Cross?” asked Tembarom. “You'll find out when you go to England.” “Well, I'm not supposing that you don't know about how many billion things I'll have to find out when I go to England.” “There will be several thousand,” replied Galton moderately; “but you'll learn about them as you go on.” “Say,” said Tembarom, reflectively, “doesn't it seem queer to think of a fellow having to keep up his spirits because he's fallen into three hundred and fifty thousand a year? You wouldn't think he'd have to, would you?” “But you find he has?” queried Galton, interestedly. Tembarom's lifted eyes were so honest that they were touching. “I don't know where I'm at,” he said. “I'm going to wake up in a new place--like people that die. If you knew what it was like, you wouldn't mind it so much; but you don't know a blamed thing. It's not having seen a sample that rattles you.” “You're fond of New York?” “Good Lord! it's all the place I know on earth, and it's just about good enough for me, by gee! It's kept me alive when it might have starved me to death. My! I've had good times here,” he added, flushing with emotion. “Good times--when I hadn't a whole meal a day!” “You'd have good times anywhere,” commented Galton, also with feeling. “You carry them over your shoulder, and you share them with a lot of other people.” He certainly shared some with Joe Bennett, whom he took up-town and introduced right and left to his friendly patrons, who, excited by the atmosphere of adventure and prosperity, received him with open arms. To have been the choice of T. Tembarom as a mere representative of the EARTH would have been a great thing for Bennett, but to be the choice of the hero of a romance of wildest opulence was a tremendous send-off. He was accepted at once, and when Tembarom actually “stood for” a big farewell supper of his own in “The Hall,” and nearly had his hand shaken off by congratulating acquaintances, the fact that he kept the new aspirant by his side, so that the waves of high popularity flowed over him until he sometimes lost his joyful breath, established him as a sort of hero himself.