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“But I want more than that this time,” and Vail fixed his eyes on Charley in a way that made the latter feel just a little ill at ease, a sensation very new to him.

“Well, how much, Harry? Don’t be afraid to ask. I told you you should have half my kingdom, old fellow!” And Vanderhuyn took his pen and began to date another check.

“But, Charley, I am almost afraid to ask. I want more than half you have–I want something worth more than all you have.”

“Why, you make me curious. Never saw you in that vein before, Vail,” and Charley twisted a piece of paper, lighted it in the gas jet, and held it gracefully in his fingers while he set his cigar going, hoping to hide his restlessness under the wistful gaze of his friend by this occupation of his attention.

But however nervous Henry Vail might be in the performance of little acts that were mere matters of convention, there was no lack of quiet self-possession in matters that called out his earnestness of spirit. And now he sat gazing steadily at Charley until the cigar had been gracefully lighted, the bit of paper tossed on the grate, and until Charley had watched his cigar a moment. When the latter reluctantly brought his eyes back into range with the dead-earnest ones that had never ceased to look on him with that strange wistful expression, then Henry Vail proceeded:

“I want you, Charley.”

Charley laughed heartily now. “Me? What a missionary I would make! Kid-glove gospeller I’d be called in the first three days. What a superb Sunday-school teacher I’d make! Why, Henry Vail, you know better. There’s just one thing in this world I have a talent for, and that’s society. I’m a man of the world in my very fiber. But as for following in your illustrious footsteps–I wish I could be so good a man, but you see I’m not built in that way. I’m a man of the world.”

“That’s just what I want,” said Henry Vail, looking with the same tender wistfulness into his friend’s eyes. “If I’d wanted a missionary I shouldn’t have come to you. If I’d wanted a Sunday-school teacher I could have found twenty better; and as for tract distributing and Bible reading, you couldn’t do either if you’d try. What I want for Huckleberry Street more than I want anything else is a man of the world. You are a man of the world–of the whole world. I have seen a restaurant waiter stop and gape and listen to your talk. I have seen a coal-heaver delighted with your manners when you paid him. Charley, you’re the most magnificent man of the world I ever saw. Must a man of the world be useless? I tell you I want you for God and Huckleberry Street, and I mean to have you some day, old fellow.” And the perfect assurance with which he said this, and the settled conviction of final success that was visible in his quiet gray eyes, fascinated Charley Vanderhuyn, and he felt spellbound, like the wedding guest held by the “Ancient Mariner.”

“I tell you what, Henry,” he said presently, “I’ve got no call. I’m an Epicurean. I say to you, in the words of an American poet:

‘Take the current of your nature, make it stagnant if you will:
Dam it up to drudge forever at the service of your will.
Mine the rapture and the freedom of the torrent on the hill!
I shall wander o’er the meadows where the fairest blossoms call:
Though the ledges seize and fling me headlong from the rocky wall,
I shall leave a rainbow hanging o’er the ruins of my fall.'”

“Charley, I don’t want to preach,” said Vail; “but you know that this doctrine of mere selfish floating on the current of impulse which your traveler poet teaches is devilish laziness, and devilish laziness always tends to something worse. You may live such a life, and quote such poetry, but you don’t believe that a man should flow on like a purposeless river. The lines you quoted bear the mark of a restless desire to apologize to conscience for a fearful waste of power and possibility. No,” he said, rising, “I don’t want that check. This one will do; but you won’t forget that God and Huckleberry Street want you, and they will have you, too, noble-hearted fellow! Good night! God bless you!” and he shook Charley’s hand and went out into the night to seek his home in Huckleberry Street. And the genial Charley never saw his brave friend again. Yes, he did, too. Or did he?