“Well, well, that is hard luck!  I’m sorry, old boy!  Things didn’t begin to go my way either till within the last few months.  I’ve always made a fair living and saved a little money, but never gained any real headway.  Now I’ve got a first-rate start and the future looks pretty favorable, and best of all, pretty safe.—­No trouble at home calls you back to Beulah?  I hope Letty is all right?” Dick cast an anxious side glance at David, though he spoke carelessly.

“Oh, no!  Everything’s serene, so far as I know.  I’m a poor correspondent, especially when I’ve no good news to tell; and anyway, the mere sight of a pen ties my tongue.  I’m just running down to surprise Letty.”

Dick looked at David again.  He began to think he didn’t like him.  He used to, when they were boys, but when he brought that unaccountable wife home and foisted her and her babies on Letty, he rather turned against him.  David was younger than himself, four or five years younger, but he looked as if he hadn’t grown up.  Surely his boyhood chum hadn’t used to be so pale and thin-chested or his mouth so ladylike and pretty.  A good face, though; straight and clean, with honest eyes and a likable smile.  Lack of will, perhaps, or a persistent run of ill luck.  Letty had always kept him stiffened up in the old days.  Dick recalled one of his father’s phrases to the effect that Dave Gilman would spin on a very small biscuit, and wondered if it were still true.

“And you, Dick?  Your father’s still living?  You see I haven’t kept up with Beulah lately.”

“Keeping up with Beulah!  It sounds like the title of a novel, but the hero would have to be a snail or he’d pass Beulah in the first chapter!—­Yes, father’s hale and hearty, I believe.”

“You come home every Christmas, I s’pose?” inquired David.

“No; as a matter of fact this is my first visit since I left for good.”

“That’s about my case.”  And David, hung his head a little, unconsciously.

“That so?  Well, I was a hot-headed fool when I said good-bye to Beulah, and it’s taken me all this time to cool off and make up my mind to apologize to the dad.  There’s—­there’s rather a queer coincidence about my visit just at this time.”

“Speaking of coincidences,” said David, “I can beat yours, whatever it is.  If the thought of your father brought you back, my mother drew me—­this way!” And he took something from his inside coat pocket.—­“Do you see that?”

Dick regarded the object blankly, then with a quick gesture dived into his pocket and brought forth another of the same general character.  “How about this?” he asked.

Each had one of Reba Larrabee’s Christmas cards but David had the first unsuccessful one and Dick the popular one with the lonely little gray house and the verse about the folks back home.

The men looked at each other in astonishment and Dick gave a low whistle.  Then they bent over the cards together.