His face was a little sober as he answered some of my questions. "I met the colonel in New York not long ago," he said. "He looks pretty old and seedy and shifty-eyed these days. He talked just the same; had a few shares to sell--just a few, you know, they were soaring up in price and in a week would be unobtainable for love or money, but he wanted to let me in on the ground floor--in a gold mine down in Eastern Tennessee. "Don't laugh; it wasn't funny. He was too anxious to be so fluent and convincing as he used to be in the old days; he reminded me of a poor, hungry, eager old dog. I bought some of the shares, for the sake of auld lang syne--I couldn't help it. And there was something sordidly pathetic in the air of affluence he put on after he'd gathered the money up in his trembling old hands. I suppose he hadn't handled so much in months; yet the sum was not large. He insisted on my going home to dinner with him; they were in a dingy boarding-house over in Brooklyn. It gave me a start to see Mrs. Pallinder; I actually thought for a minute it was the old Botlisch woman, although she died years ago, the colonel told me. Mrs. Pallinder's got to looking exactly like her, but she has more manner, you know; she put on a lot of 'side' for my benefit. The boarding-house people were very much impressed. I shouldn't wonder if my visit bolstered up the Pallinder credit a good deal--I'm so solidly respectable. But do you know, I'm sure, that aside from any motives of self-interest, the Pallinders were honestly glad to see me; they talked about old times the same as you and I are doing now--just as if they hadn't left owing everybody and under a cloud generally! I wouldn't have opened my mouth about the diamond necklace, and that last night, but Mrs. Pallinder brought it up right away; she rather flourished it before the other boarders. Huddesley and her jewels, and what she said, and what So-and-So said--it was rather diverting to hear her version." "Mazie wasn't with them, was she?" "Oh, no, Mazie's married. Married an army-officer, and they're living in the Philippines. Mrs. Pallinder told me the name, but I've forgotten it." "We used to think that Bob Carson----" "Yes. Bob's never married--he was awfully in earnest. Remember what a sweet voice he had? They used to get him to sing 'Comfort ye, my people,' in Trinity the last Sunday in Advent, don't you remember? Poor old Bob!" "Rich old Bob, you'd better say! He's made a lot of money. Susie's children will get it all, most likely. He's very fond of them; he sent the youngest girl to Europe last year to study music, somebody told me. Maybe, if Mazie knew, she'd be sorry she wouldn't have him. But it's better so; they wouldn't have been happy. Do you suppose he ever asked her, though?"