The Call of the Cumberlands

The young man settled back, and stuffed tobacco into a battered pipe.

Then, with a lightness of tone which was assumed as a defense against

her mischievous teasing, he began: "Very well, Drennie. When you were twelve, which is at best an

unimpressive age for the female of the species, I was eighteen, and all

the world knows that at eighteen a man is very mature and important.

You wore pigtails then, and it took a prophet's eye to foresee how

wonderfully you were going to emerge from your chrysalis."

The idolatry of his eyes told how wonderful she seemed to him now.

"Yet, I fell in love with you, and I said to myself, 'I'll wait for

her.' However, I didn't want to wait eternally. For eight years, I have

danced willing attendance--following you through nursery, younger-set

and débutante stages. In short, with no wish to trumpet too

loudly my own virtues, I've been your Fidus Achates." His voice

dropped from its pitch of antic whimsey, and became for a moment grave,

as he added: "And, because of my love for you, I've lived a life almost

as clean as your own."

"One's Fidus Achates, if I remember anything of my Latin, which

I don't"--the girl spoke in that voice which the man loved best,

because it had left off bantering, and become grave with such softness

and depth of timbre as might have trembled in the reed pipes of a

Sylvan Pan--"is one's really-truly friend. Everything that you claim

for yourself is admitted--and many other things that you haven't

claimed. Now, suppose you give me three minutes to make an accusation

on other charges. They're not very grave faults, perhaps, by the

standards of your world and mine, but to me, personally, they seem

important."

Wilfred nodded, and said, gravely: "I am waiting."

"In the first place, you are one of those men whose fortunes are

listed in the top schedule--the swollen fortunes. Socialists would put

you in the predatory class."

"Drennie," he groaned, "do you keep your heaven locked behind a gate

of the Needle's Eye? It's not my fault that I'm rich. It was wished on

me. If you are serious, I'm willing to become poor as Job's turkey.

Show me the way to strip myself, and I'll stand shortly before you

begging alms."

"To what end?" she questioned. "Poverty would be quite inconvenient. I

shouldn't care for it. But hasn't it ever occurred to you that the man

who wears the strongest and brightest mail, and who by his own

confession is possessed of an alert brain, ought occasionally to be

seen in the lists?"