"
"And you, Georgy, old boy," returned Demorest, swinging Barker's two
hands backwards and forwards, "were holding a royal flush up yours in
the shape of your engagement to Kitty."
The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank laugh
was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment towards the
window, and a swift and almost involuntary glance passed between the
others. But he almost as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to
Demorest again, and said eagerly, "Yes, dear Kitty! You shall see her
and the baby to-morrow."
Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and for
some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at
the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They recalled every
detail of their old life; eagerly and impetuously recounted the old
struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the strange importance of
schoolboys to unimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth
of their own; roared over old jokes with a delight they had never since
given to new; reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense
enjoyment; grew grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names,
trifling dates, useless distances, ineffective records, and feeble
chronicles of their domestic economy. It was the thoughtful and
melancholy Demorest who remembered the exact color and price paid for
a certain shirt bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envy of his
companions; it was the financial magnate, Stacy, who could inform them
what were the exact days they had saleratus bread and when flapjacks;
it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who recalled with unheard-of
accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the full name of the
Indian squaw who assisted at their washing.
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