Free 41 Stories by O. Henry Page A

any such didoes and capers in real life.”
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    III “Well, John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. Maybe I’ve had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?”
    â€œBully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up a house on it. Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, I’m in on the line of General Prosperity, no matter who’s elected!”
    â€œMet your affinity yet, John?” I asked.
    â€œOh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.
    â€œO-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken time enough off from your plate-glass to have a romance?”
    â€œNo, no,” said John. “No romance—nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it.
    â€œI was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or door-step, and she wasn’t the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her business, which was to make the world prettier and better just by residing in it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case of cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go to smash for a while.
    â€œShe changed cars at Cincinnati and took a sleeper to Louisville over the L. and N. There she bought another ticket, and went on through Shelbyville, Frankford, and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I’ll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her.
    â€œThe last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundred niggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.
    â€œA tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius Caesar and Roscoe Conkling on the same post-card, was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn’t notice that till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece behind ‘em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday.
    â€œThey went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was a tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.
    â€œ ‘Here’s where I have to trail,’ says I to myself. I thought before that she seemed to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This must be the Governor’s mansion, or the Agricultural Building of a new World’s Fair, anyhow. I’d better go back to the village and get posted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some