would have made a remarkable sum total.

Before their glasses clinked together he said, with the off-handed
courtesy indigenous to bar-rooms, where acquaintances are made with so
little trouble and ceremony:

"Mr. Haldane, my friends from New York, Mr. Van Wink and Mr. Ketchem."

Haldane turned and saw two young men standing conveniently near, who
were dressed faultlessly in the style of the day. There was nothing in
their appearance to indicate that they did not reside on Fifth Avenue,
and, indeed, they may have had rooms on that fashionable street.

Messrs. Van Wink and Ketchem had also a certain air of superiority, and
they shook hands with Haldane in a way that implied:

"While we are metropolitan men, we recognize in you an extraordinarily
fine specimen of the provincial." And the young man was not indifferent
to their unspoken flattery. He at once invited them also to state to the
smirking bartender their preferences among the liquid compounds before
them, and soon four glasses clinked together.

With fine and thoughtful courtesy they had chosen the same mixture that
he had ordered for himself, and surely some of the milk of human
kindness must have been infused in the punches which they imbibed, for
Messrs. Van Wink and Ketchem seemed to grow very friendly toward
Haldane. Perhaps taking a drink with a man inspired these worthies with
a regard for him similar to that which the social eating of bread
creates within the breasts of Bedouins, who, as travellers assert, will
protect with their lives a stranger that has sat at their board; but rob