barkeeper pointed to the rural-looking old man with the newspaper, at
the same time calling out, sportively: "Hey, Mr. Bud, here's a couple o'
gents wants to look at you."

Mr. Bud, who was tall, spare, and bent, about sixty, and the possessor
of a pleasant knobby face half surrounded by a gray beard that stretched
from ear to ear beneath his lower jaw, dropped his paper and scrutinized
the young men benevolently. They went over to him, and Larcher explained
their intrusion with as good a grace as possible.

"Why, certainly, certainly," the old man chirped with alacrity. "Glad to
have yuh. I'll be proud to do anything in the cause of literature. Come
right up." And he rose and led the way to the street door.

"Take care, Mr. Bud," said the jocular barkeeper. "Don't let them sell
you no gold bricks or nothin'. I never see them before, so you can't
hold me if you lose your money."

"You keep your mouth shut, Mick," answered the old man, "and send me up
a bottle o' whisky and a siphon o' seltzer as soon as your side partner
comes in. This way, gentlemen."

He conducted them out to the sidewalk, and then in through another door,
and up a narrow stairway, to a room with two windows overlooking the
river. It was a room of moderate size, provided with old furniture, a
faded carpet, mended curtains, and lithographs of the sort given away
with Sunday newspapers. It had, in its shabbiness, that curious effect
of cosiness and comfort which these shabby old rooms somehow possess,
and luxurious rooms somehow lack. A narrow bed in a corner was covered
with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. There was a cylindrical stove,