the never-to-be-forgotten day when he had attained to the dignity of his first pair of long trousers. He observed to himself that it was truly remarkable, the metamorphosis nine tailors and a talkative barber can make in an old sour-dough.
Presently, convinced that he was the glass of fashion and the mould of form, Mr. Webster took up a smart lancewood stick and a pair of new gray suede gloves and descended to the lobby of Denver's most exclusive hotel. He paused at the cigar stand long enough to fill his case with three-for-a-half perfectos and permit the young woman in charge to feast her world-weary eyes on his radiant person (which she did, classifying and tabulating him instantly as a millionaire mining man from Nevada). After this he lighted a cigar and stepped forth into Seventeenth Street, along which he strolled until he came to a certain building into the elevator of which he entered and was whisked to the twelfth floor, where he alighted and found himself before a wide portal which bore in gold letters the words: Engineers' Club.
The Engineers' Club was the closest approach to a home that John Stuart Webster had known for twenty years, and so he paused just within the entrance to perform the time-honoured ceremonial of home-coming. Over the arched doorway leading to the lounge hung a large bronze gong such as is used in mines, and from the lever of the gong-clapper depended a cord which Webster seized and jerked thrice—thus striking the signal known to all of the mining fraternity—the signal to hoist! Only those members who had been sojourning in distant parts six months or more were privileged thus to disturb the peace and dignity of the Engineers' Club, the same privilege, by the way, carrying with it the obligation of paying for the materials shortly to be hoisted!
Having announced the return of a prodigal, our hero stepped to the door of the lounge and shouted:
“John Stuart Webster, E. M.”
The room was empty. Not a single member was present to greet the wanderer and accept of his invitation!
“Home was never like this when I was a boy,” he complained to the servant at the telephone exchange. “Times must be pretty good in the mining game in Colorado when everybody has a job that keeps him out of Denver.”
Prev.
Back
Top