his salary, and now belonged to a small club where the paying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk at the Parker House was president.  Perhaps he should not have to reveal the cow-puncher to these shining ones.  Perhaps the cow-puncher would not stay very long.  Of course he was glad to see him again, and he would take him to dine at some obscure place this first evening.  But this was not Lin’s plan.  Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House.  Frank demurred, saying it was he that should be host.

“And,” he added, “they charge up high for wines at Parker’s.”  Then for the twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother’s clothes.

“You’re goin’ to take your grub with me,” said Lin.  “That’s all right, I guess.  And there ain’t any ‘no’ about it.  Things is not the same like as if father was livin’—­(his voice softened)—­and here to see me come home.  Now I’m good for several dinners with wines charged up high, I expect, nor it ain’t nobody in this world, barrin’ just Lin McLean, that I’ve any need to ask for anything.  ‘Mr. McLean,’ says I to Lin, ‘can yu’ spare me some cash?’ ‘Why, to be sure, you bet!’ And we’ll start off with steamed Duxbury clams.”  The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, where the coin made a muffled chinking.  Then he said, gruffly, “I suppose Swampscott’s there yet?”

“Yes,” said Frank.  “It’s a dead little town, is Swampscott.”

“I guess I’ll take a look at the old house tomorrow,” Lin pursued.

“Oh, that’s been pulled down since—­ I forget the year they improved that block.”

Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of the first and last home they had ever had.

“Seventy-nine is when it was,” continued Frank.  “So you can save the trouble of travelling away down to Swampscott.”

“I guess I’ll go to the graveyard, anyway,” said the cow-puncher in his offish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him.

They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasily surveyed the younger’s appearance.

But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin.  “After to-morrow,” said he, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “yu’ can start any lead yu’ please, and I guess I can stay with yu’ pretty close, Frank.”

Frank said nothing.  He saw one of the members of his club on the other side of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught diverted amazement on the member’s face.  Lin’s hand weighed on his shoulder, and the stress became too great.  “Lin,” said he, “while you’re running with our crowd, you don’t want to wear that style of hat, you know.”

It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, but not in the way that these were said.  The frozen fact was irrevocably revealed in the tone of Frank’s voice.