his celebrated tactics of “going along by when they were talkin’ sly.”  Suddenly Mr. Bixby’s eye alighted on Mr. Wetherell, who by a stretch of imagination conceived that it expressed both astonishment and approval, although he was wholly at a loss to understand these sentiments.  Mr. Bixby winked—­Mr. Wetherell was sure of that.  But to his surprise, Bijah did not pause in his rounds to greet him.

Mr. Wetherell was beginning to be decidedly uneasy, and was about to go upstairs, when Mr. Merrill came down the rotunda whistling, with his hands in his pockets.  He stopped whistling when he spied the storekeeper, and approached him in his usual hearty manner.

“Well, well, this is fortunate,” said Mr. Merrill; “how are you, Duncan?  I want you to know Mr. Wetherell.  Wetherell writes that weekly letter for the Guardian you were speaking to me about last year.  Will, this is Mr. Alexander Duncan, president of the ‘Central.’”

“How do you do, Mr. Wetherell?” said the scholarly gentleman with the spectacles, putting out his hand.  “I’m glad to meet you, very glad, indeed.  I read your letters with the greatest pleasure.”

Mr. Wetherell, as he took Mr. Duncan’s hand, had a variety of emotions which may be imagined, and need not be set down in particular.

“Funny thing,” Mr. Merrill continued, “I was looking for you, Duncan.  It occurred to me that you would like to meet Mr. Wetherell.  I was afraid you were in Boston.”

“I have just got back,” said Mr. Duncan.

“I wanted Wetherell to see your library.  I was telling him about it.”

“I should be delighted to show it to him,” answered Mr. Duncan.  That library, as is well known, was a special weakness of Mr. Duncan’s.

Poor William Wetherell, who was quite overwhelmed by the fact that the great Mr. Duncan had actually read his letters and liked them, could scarcely utter a sensible word.  Almost before he realized what had happened he was following Mr. Duncan out of the Pelican House, when the storekeeper was mystified once more by a nudge and another wink from Mr. Bixby, conveying unbounded admiration.

“Why don’t you write a book, Mr. Wetherell?” inquired the railroad president, when they were crossing the park.

“I don’t think I could do it,” said Mr. Wetherell, modestly.  Such incense was overpowering, and he immediately forgot Mr. Bixby.

“Yes, you can,” said Mr. Duncan, “only you don’t know it.  Take your letters for a beginning.  You can draw people well enough, when you try.  There was your description of the lonely hill-farm on the spur—­I shall always remember that:  the gaunt farmer, toiling every minute between sun and sun; the thin, patient woman bending to a task that never charged or lightened; the children growing up and leaving one by one, some to the cities, some to the West, until the old people are left alone in the evening of life—­to the sunsets and the storms.  Of course you must write a book.”