come to New York. I put out my hand, and I said, 'Isn't this Mr. Dryfoos
from Moffitt?' He didn't seem to have any use for my hand; he let me keep
it, and he squared those old lips of his till his imperial stuck straight
out. Ever see Bernhardt in 'L'Etrangere'? Well, the American husband is
old Dryfoos all over; no mustache; and hay-colored chin-whiskers cut
slanting froze the corners of his mouth. He cocked his little gray eyes
at me, and says he: 'Yes, young man; my name is Dryfoos, and I'm from
Moffitt. But I don't want no present of Longfellow's Works, illustrated;
and I don't want to taste no fine teas; but I know a policeman that does;
and if you're the son of my old friend Squire Strohfeldt, you'd better
get out.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'how would you like to go into the
newspaper syndicate business?' He gave another look at me, and then he
burst out laughing, and he grabbed my hand, and he just froze to it. I
never saw anybody so glad.

"Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked him round here to
Maroni's to dinner; and before we broke up for the night we had settled
the financial side of the plan that's brought you to New York."

"I can see," said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on March's face,
"that you don't more than half like the idea of Dryfoos. It ought to give
you more confidence in the thing than you ever had. You needn't be
afraid," he added, with some feeling, "that I talked Dryfoos into the
thing for my own advantage."

"Oh, my dear Fulkerson!" March protested, all the more fervently because
he was really a little guilty.

"Well, of course not! I didn't mean you were. But I just happened to tell
him what I wanted to go into when I could see my way to it, and he caught