"Dick!" he called. "Hi, Dick! Well, I'm hanged!"
Evidently he had discovered my cable.
"Dick isn't in," said I, crossing the threshold.
In a moment our hands were welded together, and we were gazing into
each other's eyes.
"You old reprobate!" I cried; "not to have met me at the station, even."
"Bless my soul, Jack, this cable was the first intimation that you were
within 3,000 miles of London. But it does my heart good to see you!"
pumping my hand again. "Come out to dinner with me. Now don't begin
to talk till we've had something to eat; I'm almost famished. I know
all the questions you want to ask, but not now. There's a Bohemian
joint a block above that'll do your heart good to see. We'll have
chops and ale, just like we did in the old days, the green and salad
days, I would they were back again"--soberly. "Oh, I've a long story
to tell you, my son; time enough when we get to my rooms; but not a
word of it now--not a word. It will all be forgotten in ten minutes
with you. We'll rake up the old days and live 'em over for an hour or
so. I'm glad that I suggested you in my letter. What did the old man
say about my nervous prostration?"--with half a laugh.
"He put quotation marks around it," I answered. "I wanted to see you
particularly. They told me that you were rolling downhill so fast that
if some one did not put a fulcrum under you, you'd be at the bottom in
no time at all. I'm going to be the lever by which you are to be
rolled uphill again."
He smiled grimly. "If any one could do that--well, here we are;" and
we entered the chop house and took a table in one of the side rooms.
"Woods," he said to the waiter, "chops for two, chipped potatoes, and
fill up those steins of mine with ale. That will be all. I brought
those steins from across, Jack; you'll go crazy over them, for they are
beauties."
A college-bred bachelor, nine times out of ten, has a mania for
collecting pipes or steins, or both. Dan and I had been affected this
way. During the year I had studied at Heidelberg I had gathered
together some fifty odd pipes and steins. I have them yet, and many a
pleasant memory they beget me. As for the steins of Dan, they were
beyond compare.