The speaker was interrupted by another fit of coughing, which left the sufferer very red in the face, and elicited from him the word which is always greeted with laughter in a theater.

“Say,” said David, after a moment, in which he looked anxiously at his companion, “I don’t like that cough o’ your’n.”

“I don’t thoroughly enjoy it myself,” was the rejoinder.

“Seems to be kind o’ growin’ on ye, don’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said John.

“I was talkin’ with Doc Hayes about ye,” said David, “an’ he allowed you’d ought to have your shoes off an’ run loose a spell.”

John smiled a little, but did not reply.

“Spoke to you about it, didn’t he?” continued David.

“Yes.”

“An’ you told him you couldn’t git away?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t tell him you wouldn’t go if you could, did ye?”

“I only told him I couldn’t go,” said John.

David sat for a moment thoughtfully tapping the desk with his eyeglasses, and then said with his characteristic chuckle: 

“I had a letter f’m Chet Timson yestidy.”

John looked up at him, failing to see the connection.

“Yes,” said David, “he’s out fer a job, an’ the way he writes I guess the dander’s putty well out of him.  I reckon the’ hain’t ben nothin’ much but hay in his manger fer quite a spell,” remarked Mr. Harum.

“H’m!” said John, raising his brows, conscious of a humane but very faint interest in Mr. Timson’s affairs.  Mr. Harum got out a cigar, and, lighting it, gave a puff or two, and continued with what struck the younger man as a perfectly irrelevant question.  It really seemed to him as if his senior were making conversation.

“How’s Peleg doin’ these days?” was the query.

“Very well,” was the reply.

“C’n do most anythin’ ’t’s nec’sary, can’t he?”

A brief interruption followed upon the entrance of a man, who, after saying good-morning, laid a note on David’s desk, asking for the money on it.  Mr. Harum handed it back, indicating John with a motion of his thumb.

The latter took it, looked at the face and back, marked his initials on it with a pencil, and the man went out to the counter.

“If you was fixed so ’t you could git away fer a spell,” said David a moment or two after the customer’s departure, “where would you like to go?”

“I have not thought about it,” said John rather listlessly.

“Wa’al, s’pose you think about it a little now, if you hain’t got no pressin’ engagement.  Bus’nis don’t seem to be very rushin’ this mornin’.”

“Why?” said John.

“Because,” said David impressively, “you’re goin’ somewhere right off, quick ‘s you c’n git ready, an’ you may ‘s well be makin’ up your mind where.”

John looked up in surprise.  “I don’t want to go away,” he said, “and if I did, how could I leave the office?”