At dinner that night I met my hero face to face for the first time in eight years, and for all his calling me a duffer (I learned of this only recently), he was mighty glad to see me, slapped me on the back and threw his arm across my shoulder. And why shouldn't he have been glad? We had been boys together, played hooky many a school-time afternoon, gone over the same fishing grounds, plunged into the same swimming-holes, and smoked our first cigar in the rear of my father's barn; and it is the recollection of such things that cements all the more strongly friendship in man and man. We recalled a thousand episodes and escapades, the lickings we got, and the lickings others got in our stead, the pretty school-teacher whom we swore to wed when we grew up. Nobody else had a chance to get a word in edgewise. But Nancy laughed aloud at times. She had been a witness to many of these long-ago pranks. "What! you are not going to the ball?" I asked, observing that he wore only a dinner-coat and a pair of morocco slippers. "No ball for me. Just as soon as you people hie forth, off comes this b'iled shirt, and I shall probably meander around the house in my new silk pajamas. I shall read a little from Homer--Jack, let me have the key to that locked case; I've an idea that there must be some robust old, merry old tales hidden there--and smoke a few pipes." "But you are not going to leave Mrs. Warburton and your sister to come home without escort?" I expostulated. "Where the deuce are you two men going?" Robert asked, surprised. Somehow, I seemed to catch a joyful rather than a sorrowful note in his tones. "An important conference at midnight, and heaven only knows how long it may last," said Jack. "I wish you would go along, Bob." "He can't go now, anyhow," said the pretty little wife. "He has got to stay now, whether he will or no. William will see to it that we women get home all right,"--and she busied herself with the salad dishes. Suddenly I caught Robert's eye, and we stared hard at each other. "Chuck, you old pirate," he said presently, "what do you mean by coming around and making love to my sister, and getting her to promise to marry you? You know you aren't good enough for her." I confess to no small embarrassment. "I--I know it!" "What do you mean by it, then?" "Why--er--that is--Confound you, Bob, _I_ couldn't help it, and besides, I didn't _want_ to help it! And if you want to have it out--" "Oh, pshaw! You know just as well as I do that it is against the law to hit a man that wears glasses. We'll call it quits if you'll promise that in the days to come you'll let me hang around your hymeneal shack once in a while." "Why, if you put it that way!"--and we were laughing and shaking hands again across the table, much to the relief of all concerned. Dear Nan! I'm not afraid to let the whole world see how much I love you. For where exists man's strength if not in the pride of his love?