your Obdt. & Affect. Friend,

"BATTERSLEIGH.

"P.S.--Pray Herild your advent by a letter & bring about 4 lbs. or 5
lbs. of your Favourite Tea, as I am Short of Same."


The letter ended with Battersleigh's best flourish. Franklin turned it
over again and again in his hand and read it more than once as he
pondered upon its message. "Dear old fellow," he said; "he's a good
deal of a Don Quixote, but he never forgets a friend. Buffalo and
Indians, railroads and hotels--it must at least be a land of contrasts!"




CHAPTER VI

EDWARD FRANKLIN, LAWYER

Edward Franklin had taken up his law studies in the office of Judge
Bradley, the leading lawyer of the little village of Bloomsbury, where
Franklin was born, and where he had spent most of his life previous to
the time of his enlistment in the army. Judge Bradley was successful,
as such matters go in such communities, and it was his open boast that
he owed his success to himself and no one else. He had no faith in
such mythical factors as circumstances in the battle of life. This is
the common doctrine of all men who have arrived, and Judge Bradley had
long since arrived, in so far as the possibilities of his surroundings