dignities explanatorily, but with a willingness, I could see, that
it should affect me. He went on: "They're kind of connections of
my first wife's. Well, she's a nice girl; too nice, I guess, to get
along very fast. I see girls all the way along down gettin'
acquainted on the cars and boats--we come east on the Ogdensburg
road to Rouse's Point, and then took the boat down Lake Champlain
and Lake George--but she always seemed to hold back. I don't know's
she's proud either; I can't make it out. It balls my wife all up,
too. I tell her she's fretted off all the good her trip's goin' to
do her before she got it."

He laughed ruefully, and just then the band began to play the
"Washington Post."

"What tune's that?" he demanded.

"'Washington Post,'" I said, proud of knowing it.

"By George! that tune goes right to a fellow's legs, don't it?"

"It's the new march," I said.

He listened with a simple joy in it, and his pleasure strengthened
the mystic bond which had formed itself between us through the
confidences he had made me, so flatteringly corroborative of all my
guesses concerning him and his party.



CHAPTER IV