“Billy Page came back in August, looking pretty bum,” Nick Baumgarten began.  “He’d been painting gay Paree brick red, and he’d spent more money than he’d meant to, and that wasn’t half enough.  Landed dead broke.  He said he’d had a great time, but he’d come home with rather a dark brown taste in his mouth, that he’d like to get rid of.”

“He thought you were a fool to go off cycling into the country,” put in Wetherbee, “but I told him I guessed that was where he was ’way off.  I believed you’d had the best time of the two of you.”

“Boys,” said Selden, “I had the time of my life.”  He said it almost solemnly, and laid his hand on the table.  “It was like one of those yarns Bert tells us.  Half the time I didn’t believe it, and half the time I was ashamed of myself to think it was all happening to me and none of your fellows were in it.”

“Oh, well,” said Jem Belter, “luck chases some fellows, anyhow.  Look at Nick, there.”

“Well,” Selden summed the whole thing up, “I just fell into it where it was so deep that I had to strike out all I knew how to keep from drowning.”

“Tell us the whole thing,” Nick Baumgarten put in; “from beginning to end.  Your letter didn’t give anything away.”

“A letter would have spoiled it.  I can’t write letters anyhow.  I wanted to wait till I got right here with you fellows round where I could answer questions.  First off,” with the deliberation befitting such an opening, “I’ve sold machines enough to pay my expenses, and leave some over.”

“You have?  Gee whiz!  Say, give us your prescription.  Glad I know you, Georgy!”

“And who do you suppose bought the first three?” At this point, it was he who leaned forward upon the table—­his climax being a thing to concentrate upon.  “Reuben S. Vanderpoel’s daughter—­Miss Bettina!  And, boys, she gave me a letter to Reuben S., himself, and here it is.”

He produced a flat leather pocketbook and took an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth.  His knowledge that they would not have believed him if he had not brought his proof was founded on everyday facts.  They would not have doubted his veracity, but the possibility of such delirious good fortune.  What they would have believed would have been that he was playing a hilarious joke on them.  Jokes of this kind, but not of this proportion, were common entertainments.

Their first impulse had been towards an outburst of laughter, but even before he produced his letter a certain truthful seriousness in his look had startled them.  When he laid the envelope down each man caught his breath.  It could not be denied that Jem Belter turned pale with emotion.  Jem had never been one of the lucky ones.

“She let me read it,” said G. Selden, taking the letter from its envelope with great care.  “And I said to her:  ’Miss Vanderpoel, would you let me just show that to the boys the first night I go to Shandy’s?’ I knew she’d tell me if it wasn’t all right to do it.  She’d know I’d want to be told.  And she just laughed and said:  ’I don’t mind at all.  I like “the boys.”  Here is a message to them.  “Good luck to you all."’”