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Here Jefferson threw open the door, ushering in half a dozen gentlemen, and among them the rightful host, just returned after a week’s absence,–cutting off the major’s outburst, and producing another equally explosive:–

“Why, Jack!”

Before the two men grasp hands I must, in all justice to the major, say that he not only had a sincere admiration for Jack’s surroundings, but also for Jack himself, and that while he had not the slightest compunction in sharing or, for that matter, monopolizing his hospitality, he would have been equally generous in return had it been possible for him to revive the old days, and to afford a menage equally lavish.

It is needless for me to make a like statement for Jack. One half the major’s age, trained to practical business life from boyhood, frank, spontaneous, every inch a man, kindly natured, and, for one so young, a deep student, of men as well as of books, it was not to be wondered at that not only the major but that every one else who knew him loved him. The major really interested him enormously. He represented a type which was new to him, and which it delighted him to study. The major’s heartiness, his magnificent disregard for meum and tuum, his unique and picturesque mendacity, his grandiloquent manners at times, studied, as he knew, from some example of the old regime, whom he either consciously or unconsciously imitated, his peculiar devotion to the memory of his late wife,–all appealed to Jack’s sense of humor, and to his enjoyment of anything out of the common. Under all this he saw, too, away down in the major’s heart, beneath these several layers, a substratum of true kindness and tenderness.

This kindness, I know, pleased Jack best of all.

So when the major sprang up in delight, calling out, “Why, Jack!” it was with very genuine, although quite opposite individual, sympathies, that the two men shook hands. It was beautiful, too, to see the major welcome Jack to his own apartments, dragging up the most comfortable chair in the room, forcing him into it, and tucking a cushion under his head, or ringing up Jefferson every few moments for some new luxury. These he would catch away from that perfectly trained servant’s tray, serving them himself, rattling on all the time as to how sorry he was that he did not know the exact hour at which Jack would arrive, that he might have had breakfast on the table–how hot had it been on the road–how well he was looking, etc.

It was specially interesting, besides, after the proper introductions had been made, to note the way in which Jack’s friends, inoculated with the contagion of the major’s mood, and carried away by his breezy, buoyant enthusiasm, encouraged the major to flow on, interjecting little asides about his horses and farm stock, agreeing to a man that the two-year old colt–a pure creation on the moment of the major–would certainly beat the record and make the major’s fortune, and inquiring with great solicitude whether the major felt quite sure that the addition to the stables which he contemplated would be large enough to accommodate his stud, with other similar inquiries which, while indefinite and tentative, were, so to speak, but flies thrown out on the stream of talk,–the major rising continuously, seizing the bait, and rushing headlong over sunken rocks and through tangled weeds of the improbable in a way that would have done credit to a Munchausen of older date. As for Jack, he let him run on. One plank in the platform of his hospitality was to give every guest a free rein.

Before the men separated for the day, the major had invited each individual person to make Crab Island his home for the balance of his life, regretting that no woman now graced his table since Mrs. Slocomb’s death,–“Major Talbot’s widow–Major John Talbot of Pocomoke, suh,” this impressively and with sudden gravity of tone,–placing his stables, his cellar, and his servants at their disposal, and arranging for everybody to meet everybody else the following day in Baltimore, the major starting that night, and Jack and his friends the next day. The whole party would then take passage on board one of the Chesapeake Bay boats, arriving off Crab Island at daylight the succeeding morning.