I feel like two cents to think how I sized you up. I always thought you’d like to wipe the earth with me, but you’ve certainly made me feel ashamed. Why, man, your recommend must have been a crackerjack! Just gaze on that!” And he handed Alan a telegram.

GLAD YOU ARE GOING! I REMEMBER YOU FAVORABLY. DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE QUALIFICATIONS. ANYONE MACFARLAND RECOMMENDS IS WORTH GETTING. SHALL RESERVE YOU AS MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT. MEET YOU AT TWELVE THIRTY AT THE SHIP. HODGE.

 

Something glad broke loose in Alan’s heart that lifted his spirits. It was good to have this other fellow going—good to have put him into it.

“That’s great!” he said cheerily. “But I didn’t do a thing, really only suggested your name.”

“H’m!” said Bob significantly. “Shows how much your suggestion is worth. Look here, man. It’s you going on this expedition, not me. See? All the time I’m gone, I’m thinking that, see? I’m you, not myself. I’ve got to be what you would be if you had gone.”

Afterward, Bob’s words came back to Alan; once, months later, when he had a question as to which course of two he, as a Christian, should follow, then suddenly he remembered Bob and his way cleared. Why, that was exactly the way it was with a Christian. It wasn’t he, Alan MacFarland, that was deciding whether to do this or that, it was Jesus Christ. He was not living, Christ was living in him. Strange he had never thought of that before. And it took Bob Lincoln, a fellow who wasn’t a Christian at all, to show him where he actually stood in this world—if he really meant what he had professed.

Bob declined to go home with Alan to supper, saying he must go see his brother-in-law and it was the only time he could find him at home, but he promised to come back and spend the night and be there as early as he could make it after nine o’clock. He had to pack. He showed Alan the sweater he had bought, and tore paper from his new shoes, exhibiting them with pleasure.

“And I’ve saved on several things,” he said. “There’s ten dollars more than I really need that I’m returning to you now.”

“Try and do it!” said Alan, eluding Bob and striding off toward the hardware store with a merry wave of his hand.

“Get even with you yet!” yelled Bob merrily and went off toward his brother-in-law’s house.

A sort of sick premonition went over Alan as he approached the store. He wondered if there had been any developments.

“Any phone calls?” he asked the clerk, who had been restively watching the clock, anxious to get out and play baseball with the Twilight League, and wanting his supper besides.

“Yep!” the lad said. “Couple! Real estate man in the city, Spur and Holden, said they’d had an offer from a man on yer lots. He’d give you a thousand less than yer price, and they advised ya ta accept. Said it was the best you’d get this time of year. And then a fella, name’s Rawlins, called up and said he had a proposition ta make, but ya had to come ta terms before eleven o’clock tamarra, ur it was all off.”

“Thanks,” said Alan wearily without a change of expression; both messages had been like broadsides. “Just stop in at the restaurant and ask ‘em to send me a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich, won’t you? I haven’t time to go home just now.”

Then Alan climbed into his father’s desk chair and attacked the mail that had arrived. All but two of the letters were bills, and most of them asked for immediate payment.