“I see now,” said the colonel,“why it is I can never catch you in your office in town; you do your work at home. Well, that’s lots better than workin’ where any and everybody can come in on you. I thought I’d find you out here enjoying your _otium cum digitalis_, as old Tuck Bonner used to say; but instead of that you’re waist-deep in newspapers.” I assured the colonel that there were some people in the world whom I would be glad to see, no matter how busy I might be. “I know the feeling,” replied Colonel Blasengame; “but you’ll be cussing me as sure as the world, for I haven’t a grain of business to see you about. But I hear Tumlin and old Aunt Minervy Ann talking about you so constantly that I thought I’d come out and say howdye, if no more.” “Well, you’ll have to say more than that this time,” I remarked; “I was just thinking, when you rang the door-bell, that I would give something pretty to see you.” “Now, is that reely so?” cried the colonel. “Then I’m twice glad—once because I took a notion to come, and once again because you’re glad. You used to fight so shy of me when you lived among us that I was afraid I wouldn’t get on wi’ you; but I’m sorter offish myself.” “Colonel,” said I, “did you ever know Mary Ellen Tatum?” He rubbed his face and forehead with his hand, and regarded me with a slight frown, and a smile that seemed to mean anything except pleasure. “Will you allow me to ask you why you put such a question to me?” “Why, certainly, Colonel; read that.” I placed the clipping from the _Transcript_ in his hand. He held it off at arm’s length and tried to decipher it, but the print was too fine. Placing it on his knee, he searched in his pockets until he found his spectacles, and then he read the article through carefully—not once, but twice. Then smoothing the clipping out on his knee, he looked at me inquiringly. “Do you know Mary Ellen?” he asked. I did not, and said so. “Did you ever hear of her before?” “Why, yes,” I replied. “Aunt Minervy Ann told me some very interesting things about her, and I wanted to ask you if they were true.” The colonel jumped to his feet with a laugh. “Plague on old Minervy Ann!” he exclaimed. “Why, I came out here purposely to tell you about Mary Ellen. This thing,” indicating the clipping, “is away behind the time with its news. The picture it tells about is at my house this very minute, and another one in the bargain. The first chance you get, come down home and look at ’em. If you don’t open your eyes I’ll never sign my name S. B. Blasengame again.” He walked up and down the room in a restless way. “What do you reckon that gyurl did?” he asked, stopping before me and stretching out his right arm. “Why, she sent a man with the pictures—a right nice fellow he was, too. He said it cost a pile of money to git ’em through the custom-house at New York; he had to hang around there a week. When I asked him for his bill he raised his hands and laughed. Everything was paid.”