"Wall, ef I ain't dog-goned glad ter see ye ag'in, Derry!" he said, holding forth a fat fist for another handshake. "But whar on airth did ye bury yerself? Between yer friend Mr. Dacre an' meself, the hull blame world was s'arched fer news of you; but you couldn't hev vanished more completely ef Jonah's whale had swallered you, or you'd been carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah." "Hello, Mac!" cried Power, eying his elderly companion with renewed interest. "Whence this Biblical flavor in your speech? Have you taken a much-needed religious turn?" "It's fer example, an' that's a fac', Derry. Sence you boosted me inter bein' a notorious char-ac-ter, I've kind o' lived up ter specification. Thar's no gettin' away from it. Ye can't deal out prizes to a row o' shiny-faced kids in a Sunday-school without larnin' some of the stock lingo, an' bits of it stick. But don't let's talk about me. I want ter hear about you. Whar hev you been?" "It's a long story, Mac, and will take some telling. Just now, looking around at this room and its familiar objects, my mind goes back through the years. What did you say to Nancy when she wrote and asked what had become of me?" MacGonigal, who had made quite a speech at the reception, and had been unusually long-winded during the drive, reverted suddenly to earlier habit. "Who's been openin' old sores?" he inquired. "No one. Nancy wrote to me before she died. That is all." "Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?" "Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened." "It wasn't such a heap. She cabled an' wrote, an' I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about--about yer mother's death. That was the on'y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin' act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks." "Have you met Marten recently?" "He was in Denver last fall." "And the child--the little girl--did you see her?" "Yep. Gosh, Derry, she's as like her mother as two peas in a pod." "Is Marten fond of her?" "Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he's a hard man ter move any other way." "Where does he live?" "In Europe, fer the most part. He's out of mines an' rails--in the West, anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin' through a state loan fer the I-talians." "Quite an international financier, eh?" "That's what the papers call him. Guess it's Shakespeare's English fer a dog-goned shark." "You know Willard is dead?" "Know! Didn't I celebrate with a school-treat fer two thousand kids?" "Mac! Haven't they taught you better than that at your Sunday-schools?" "Thar's a proverb about skinnin' a Rooshan an' findin' a Tartar. That's me, all the time, when any of that bunch shows up on the screen. What d'ye think Marten kem to Denver for?" "I can't imagine."