23 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



Januar 



stcnographtT and dictated a letfcr tell-- 

 iug Hiiward that he had enjoyed bis 

 visit with Ferguson ininieusely. 



Two \vcel:s afterward Ferguson re- 

 ceived fnrtlier documents from Pocatel- 

 io. 



"The mat*'er you were examining in- 

 to, " Ho\v.;rd wrote, "turns out to be a 

 pretty good ;hing, and I'd advise you to 

 hang on to it. Ill keep you posted on 

 developments. I'll not let them fool 

 you. By the way, what do you think of 

 Walker? You haven't told me. " 



"Thunder and lightning!" Ferguson 

 uttered, "I ought to have called on 

 Howard's friend a month ago. Here he 

 is doing me all kinds of good turns out 

 fbere in Pocatello and I haven't grati- 

 tude enough to go and meet the man he 

 asked me to." He would have ru.shed 

 out forthwith to commune with Walk-" 

 er, only he saw that the directory locat- 

 ed the man away off on the North Side. 



"I'll take that letter around to hini 

 nest week," said Ferguson. 



He did not, however. He promptly 

 forgot all about Walker until a fort- 

 night passed and information came 

 from Pocatello that "the property is up 

 20 per cent in value. Give my respects 

 to Walker the next time you see him. " 



"Next time I see him," Ferguson re 

 peated. "Let's see. Did I say I had al- 

 ready met him? I guess I must have 

 told Howard something like that. Well, 

 I'll have to lie it out on that line if it 

 takes all summer." So he answered 

 Hovard's l;*^ter by saying that he and 

 Walker had together seen a play the 

 uight before tind had had a most enor- 

 mously good time. He even repeated 



Bome anecdotes of Howard's earlier life 

 which he declared Walker had told 

 him. "I'd like to know whether Walker 

 is married or single, ' ' Ferguson thought. 

 "I've got a bully story I could tell 

 about him if I only knew. Doggone 

 him! I wi.sh I didn't have that letter 

 of introduction to him. He's getting to 

 be a kind of nuisance." 



About the same time Walker, writ- 

 ing to Howard, was saying how much 

 he was indebted to the western man for 

 the pleasure he had drawn from his 

 lompaniouship with Ferguson. 



"Only I wish to heaven Harry hadn't 

 been so fervent in his desire to have me, 

 meet the fellow," he observed to him-. 



self. "I suppose that, as he says, this 

 man Ferguson is all right, but I haven'i 

 time to go skating all over this to~wi 

 looking him up. I presume I ought tc 

 have gone and dug him out for Harry's 

 sake a long tim^ ago, but I keep forget 

 ting it, and now I've involved mysell 

 in a fooli.sh mesh of lies about my ex 

 periences with Ferguson, whom I have 

 not met, and whom, to tell the truth, 

 I'm getting so I don't want to meet." 



Out in Pocatello Harry Howard was 

 delighted with the tidings, he received 

 from Chicago. "It's a great satisfac- 

 tion, " he told himself, "to bring twc 

 good men together this way. It's really 

 a noteworthy thing to be the author ol 

 a firm friendship between two first class- 

 people. Only I hardly think I under- 

 stand this last letter of Ferguson's. 1 

 thought Walker had only two children, 

 and here Ferguson writes me about his 

 little girl. She must have been born in 

 the last year. There were certainly 

 only two boys when I passed through 

 Chicago last summer. I'll send Ben my 

 congratulations." 



When Walker received the sheet con- 

 veying honest Harry Howard's good 

 wishes for the best and brightest future 

 for little Miss Walker, he ran his fin- 

 gers through his hair and looked dazed. 

 "When did I say anything about a new 

 baby?" he wondered. "I must have f& 

 written him some lie about that fel 

 low Ferguson's child. I think I have ft 

 described the man's wife and children 

 and father in-law and the mortgage on 

 his house in my communications with 

 Howard. Harry's always asking new 

 questions, and the chances are that Fer- 

 guson has no family, and Howard thinks 

 it was a slip of the pen and that I wrote 

 about my own new baby — which I 

 haven't got. Heavens, I wish this busi- 

 ness had never started! I wish I'd never 

 promised to call on Ferguson. I wish 

 Ferguson would get run over by a cable 

 car or come to some definite and perma- 

 nent end. ■ I'm getting to hate the very 

 name of him. I'll bet he's a cheap 

 skate anyhow who has imposed upon, 

 Howard's good nature. Why should I 

 go drilling three miles into town just 

 to meet him and say: 'How are you? I' 

 know a friend of yours.' I shan't do 

 it." 



Ferguson had already come to a elmi-: 

 lar conclusion. "Howard's a first class" 



