"I hope I've changed as much for the better as you have, Braddock," said David, and he meant it. Braddock whirled to glare at him in wonder. He was silent for a moment. Then he flung himself into the chair, his jaws setting themselves firmly, no trace of the sarcastic smile remaining. "I guess you have, David," he said shortly. "You're not what you were when you joined us five years ago." A sneer came to his lips. "What a high and mighty chap you've come to be. No wonder you won't shake hands with a jail-bird." "Stop talking, Tom Braddock," said Ruby, a gleam of anxiety in her eyes. "Here's what's left of the lamb and here's--" "Wait a minute, Ruby," said he. With his elbows on the edge of the table and his chin in his broad, sinewy hands he leaned forward and spoke again to David. "I've been out three weeks. I was up there for two years and a half. I'm just telling you this so's you'll know why I've changed. The whiskey's all out of me. There never will be any more inside of me, do you understand that? Ten years ago I was a man--wasn't I, Joey? I was a dog when you knew me, Jenison. Now, I'm a man again. See these hands? Well, they've been doing honest work, even if it was in a convict barrel factory. I'm ten times stronger than I was before. There isn't a soft muscle in my body. What you miss is the fat--the whiskey fat. I'm gray-headed, but who wouldn't be? But that is not what I'm trying to get at. I saw Dick Cronk this morning. I don't know how he found me. He told me you were up here to take a hand in my affairs. What I want to know, right here, Jenison, is this: Where is your friend Bob Grand and where is _she?_" He spoke quite calmly, but there was a deliberate menace in his tones. David was startled. An angry retort leaped to his lips, but he choked it back. "You are very much mistaken, Braddock, if you consider me the friend of Colonel Grand. I hate him quite as bitterly as you do. I--" "Oh, no, you don't," snapped the other. "No one in all this world, from its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate." "He is no friend of mine," reiterated David. "I think you know me well enough to believe that I do not lie. I have not seen him in five years." Braddock stared hard at him. Suddenly he leaned back with a deep breath of relief. "I believe you," he said. "You don't know how to lie. Well, what are you doing here, then, mixing in my affairs?" "We'll talk about that later on," said David. "Here is food, man. Eat. You are half-starved. Have you no money?"