“The wall-eyed thing!” exclaimed Miss Carrington, with asperity.  “Why, Tom Beedle once—­say, you folks, excuse me a while—­this is an old friend of mine—­Mr.—­what was it?  Yes, Mr. Summers—­Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Ricketts, Mr.—­ Oh, what’s yours?  ’Johnny’’ll do—­come on over here and tell me some more.”

She swept him to an isolated table in a corner.  Herr Goldstein shrugged his fat shoulders and beckoned to the waiter.  The newspaper man brightened a little and mentioned absinthe.  The youth with parted hair was plunged into melancholy.  The guests of the rathskeller laughed, clinked glasses and enjoyed the comedy that Posie Carrington was treating them to after her regular performance.  A few cynical ones whispered “press agent"’ and smiled wisely.

Posie Carrington laid her dimpled and desirable chin upon her hands, and forgot her audience—­a faculty that had won her laurels for her.

“I don’t seem to recollect any Bill Summers,” she said, thoughtfully gazing straight into the innocent blue eyes of the rustic young man.  “But I know the Summerses, all right.  I guess there ain’t many changes in the old town.  You see any of my folks lately?”

And then Highsmith played his trump.  The part of “Sol Haytosser” called for pathos as well as comedy.  Miss Carrington should see that he could do that as well.

“Miss Posie,” said “Bill Summers,” “I was up to your folkeses house jist two or three days ago.  No, there ain’t many changes to speak of.  The lilac bush by the kitchen window is over a foot higher, and the elm in the front yard died and had to be cut down.  And yet it don’t seem the same place that it used to be.”

“How’s ma?” asked Miss Carrington.

“She was settin’ by the front door, crocheting a lamp-mat when I saw her last,” said “Bill.”  “She’s older’n she was, Miss Posie.  But everything in the house looked jest the same.  Your ma asked me to set down.  ‘Don’t touch that willow rocker, William,’ says she.  ’It ain’t been moved since Posie left; and that’s the apron she was hemmin’, layin’ over the arm of it, jist as she flung it.  I’m in hopes,’ she goes on, ‘that Posie’ll finish runnin’ out that hem some day.’”

Miss Carrington beckoned peremptorily to a waiter.

“A pint of extra dry,” she ordered, briefly; “and give the check to Goldstein.”

“The sun was shinin’ in the door,” went on the chronicler from Cranberry, “and your ma was settin’ right in it.  I asked her if she hadn’t better move back a little.  ‘William,’ says she, ’when I get sot down and lookin’ down the road, I can’t bear to move.  Never a day,’ says she, ’but what I set here every minute that I can spare and watch over them palin’s for Posie.  She went away down that road in the night, for we seen her little shoe tracks in the dust, and somethin’ tells me she’ll come back that way ag’in when she’s weary of the world and begins to think about her old mother.’