“Heavenly hope, Major, did you have to go up against the other man game, too?  I seem to have been standing by with a basket picking up chips of Phoebe’s lovers for a long lifetime; Tom, Hob, Payt, widowers and flocks of new fledges.  But I had an idea that you must have been a first-and-only with Mrs. Matilda.”

“Well, it sometimes happens, David, that the individuality of all of a woman’s first loves get so merged into that of the last that it would be difficult for her to differentiate them herself; and it is best to keep her happily employed so she doesn’t try.”

“Well, all I can say for you, Major,” interrupted Kildare with a laugh, “is that your forty years’ work shows some.  Your Mrs. Buchanan is what I call a finished product of a wife.  I’ll never do it in the world.  I can get up and talk a jury into seeing things my way, but I get cross-brained when I go to put things to Phoebe.  That reminds me, that case on old Jim Cross for getting tangled up with some fussy hens in Latimer’s hen-house week before last is called for to-day at twelve sharp.  I’m due to put the old body through and pay the fine and costs; only the third time this year.  I’m thinking of buying him a hen farm to save myself trouble.  Good-by, sir!”

“David, David,” laughed the major, “beware of your growing responsibilities!  Cap Hobson reported that sensation of yours before the grand jury over that negro and policeman trouble.  The darkies will put up your portrait beside that of Father Abe on Emancipation Day and you will be in danger of passing down to posterity by the public-spirit-fame chute.  Your record will be in the annals of the city if you don’t mind!”

“Not much danger, Major,” answered David with a smile.  “I’m just a glad man with not balance enough to run the rail of any kind of heavy track affairs.”

“David,” said the major with a sudden sadness coming into his voice and eyes, “one of the greatest men I ever knew we called the glad man—­the boy’s father, Andrew Sevier.  We called him Andrew, the Glad.  Something has brought it all back to me to-day and with your laugh you reminded me of him.  The tragedy of it all!”

“I’ve always known what a sorrow it was to you, Major, and it is the bitterness that is eating the heart out of Andy.  What was it all about exactly, sir?  I have always wanted to ask you.”  David looked into the major’s stern old eyes with such a depth of sympathy in his young ones that a barrier suddenly melted and with the tone of bestowing an honor the old fire-eater told the tale of the sorrow of his youth.

“Gaming was in his blood, David, and we all knew it and protected him from high play always.  We were impoverished gentlemen, who were building fences and restoring war-devastated lands, and we played in our shabby club with a minimum stake and a maximum zest for the sport.  But that night we had no control over him.  He had been playing in secret with Peters Brown for weeks and had lost heavily.  When we had closed up the game, he called for the dice and challenged Brown to square their account.  They threw again and again with luck on the same grim side.  I saw him stake first his horses, then his bank account, and lose.