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“We talked two hours. I told him everything I knew; and then he began to ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was to give me a chance. If I couldn’t make a hit with the little lady, I’d clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says:

“‘There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if I remember rightly.’

“‘If there was,’ says I, ‘he can’t claim kin with our bunch. We’ve always lived in and around Pittsburgh. I’ve got an uncle in the real- estate business, and one in trouble somewhere out in Kansas. You can inquire about any of the rest of us from anybody in old Smoky Town, and get satisfactory replies. Did you ever run across that story about the captain of the whaler who tried to make a sailor say his prayers?’ says I.

“‘It occurs to me that I have never been so fortunate,’ says the colonel.

“So I told it to him. Laugh! I was wishing to myself that he was a customer. What a bill of glass I’d sell him! And then he says:

“‘The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemed to me, Mr. Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promoting and perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, I will relate to you a fox-hunting story with which I was personally connected, and which may furnish you some amusement.’

So he tells it. It takes forty minutes by the watch. Did I laugh? Well, say! When I got my face straight he calls in old Pete, the super-annuated darky, and sends him down to the hotel to bring up my valise. It was Elmcroft for me while I was in the town.

“Two evenings later I got a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessie alone on the porch while the colonel was thinking up another story.

“‘It’s going to be a fine evening,’ says I.

“‘He’s coming,’ says she. ‘He’s going to tell you, this time, the story about the old negro and the green watermelons. It always comes after the one about the Yankees and the game rooster. There was another time,’ she goes on, ‘that you nearly got left–it was at Pulaski City.’

“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on the step, and I nearly tumbled off.’

“‘I know,’ says she. ‘And–and I–I was afraid you had, John A. I was afraid you had.’

“And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows.”

IV

“Coketown!” droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car.

Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of an old traveller.

“I married her a year ago,” said John. “I told you I built a house in the East End. The belted–I mean the colonel–is there, too. I find him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any new story I might have picked up on the road.”

I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a ragged hillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up against dreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents, too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud to the railroad-tracks.

“You won’t sell much plate-glass here, John,” said I. “Why do you get off at this end-o’-the-world?”

“Why,” said Pescud, “the other day I took Jessie for a little trip to Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in a pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I’d drop off here for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the address. Come out and see us when you have time.”

The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insisted on having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. The porter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car.

I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set it carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-drops would not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed to see that life has no geographical metes and bounds.

“Good-luck to you, Trevelyan,” I said. “And may you get the petunias for your princess!”