“I am Mr. Riley.  Did you happen to be looking for me?”

“That’s just what I was doing,” said the man, joyously, “and it’s the biggest luck in the world that I’ve found you.  My name is Lykins.  I’m one of the teachers of the high school—­San Francisco.  As soon as I heard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to get it—­and here I am.”

“Yes,” said Riley, slowly, “as you have remarked ...  Mr. Lykins ... here you are.  And have you got it?”

“Well, not exactly got it, but the next thing to it.  I’ve brought a petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all the teachers, and by more than two hundred other people.  Now I want you, if you’ll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation, for I want to rush this thing through and get along home.”

“If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the delegation tonight,” said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in it—­to an unaccustomed ear.

“Oh, tonight, by all means!  I haven’t got any time to fool around.  I want their promise before I go to bed —­I ain’t the talking kind, I’m the doing kind!”

“Yes ... you’ve come to the right place for that.  When did you arrive?”

“Just an hour ago.”

“When are you intending to leave?”

“For New York tomorrow evening—­for San Francisco next morning.”

“Just so....  What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“Do!  Why, I’ve got to go to the President with the petition and the delegation, and get the appointment, haven’t I?”

“Yes ... very true ... that is correct.  And then what?”

“Executive session of the Senate at 2 P.M.—­got to get the appointment confirmed—­I reckon you’ll grant that?”

“Yes ... yes,” said Riley, meditatively, “you are right again.  Then you take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San Francisco next morning?”

“That’s it—­that’s the way I map it out!”

Riley considered a while, and then said: 

“You couldn’t stay ... a day ... well, say two days longer?”

“Bless your soul, no!  It’s not my style.  I ain’t a man to go fooling around—­I’m a man that does things, I tell you.”

The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts.  Riley stood silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he looked up and said: 

“Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby’s, once? ...  But I see you haven’t.”

He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest: