Van Alstyne."
"Barnes!" I repeated. "Then you're the doctor."
He grinned, and stood turning his hat around in his hands.
"Not exactly," he said. "I graduated in medicine a good many years ago,
but after a year of it, wearing out more seats of trousers waiting
for patients than I earned enough to pay for, and having to have new
trousers, I took to other things."
"Oh, yes," I said. "You're an actor now."
He looked thoughtful.
"Some people think I'm not," he answered, "but I'm on the stage.
Graduated there from prize-fighting. Prize-fighting, the stage, and then
writing for magazines--that's the usual progression. Sometimes, as a
sort of denouement before the final curtain, we have dinner at the White
House."
I took a liking to the man at once. It was a relief to have somebody
who was willing to tell all about himself and wasn't incognito, or in
hiding, or under somebody else's name. I put a fresh log on the fire,
and as it blazed up I saw him looking at me.
"Ye gods and little fishes!" he said. "Another redhead! Why, we're as
alike as two carrots off the same bunch!"
In five minutes I knew how old he was, and where he was raised, and that
what he wanted more than anything on earth was a little farmhouse with
chickens and a cow.
"Where you can have air, you know," he said, waving his hands, which
were covered with reddish hair. "Lord, in the city I starve for air! And
where, when you're getting soft you can go out and tackle the wood-pile.
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