McGinnis’s voice dropped into a low, intent whisper.  “Do you mean to tell me that?” he said.  “Me, with my thirst?” He laid a hand on Billy’s shoulder.  “Friend,” said he, “I’ve walked two hundred miles.  I’ve developed your place.  I’m in a position to give this town a public liberry worth maybe forty dollars.  Now, do you mean to say to me—­do you mean—­” He gulped, unable to proceed.  Hudgens nodded.  McGinnis let fall his hand from the counter, turned and silently left the place.

He moved up the street to the adobe where the barber had his shop.  The barber was gloomily sitting inside, waiting.  McGinnis entered, and looked about him with the ease of one revisiting familiar scenes.

In a case upon the wall were rows of shaving mugs, now dusty and abandoned, mute witnesses of a former era of glory.  Indeed, they remained an historical record of earlier life in Heart’s Desire.

Once there had been rivalry between McGinnis and Tom Redmond for the affections of a widow who kept a boarding-house in Heart’s Desire, the same long since departed.  There came by express one day, addressed to Tom Redmond, a shaving mug of great beauty and considerable size, whereon the name of Tom Redmond, handsomely emblazoned, led all the rest.  The fame of this work of art so spread abroad that Tom Redmond, as befitted one who had attained social distinction, became the recipient of increased smiles from the widow aforesaid.  McGinnis bided his time.  Thirty days later, there arrived by stage for him a shaving mug of such stature and such exceeding art as cast that of Tom Redmond completely in the shade!  Thenceforth the widow smiled upon McGinnis.  Tom Redmond, unable to endure this humiliation, and in the limitation of things wholly unable to raise the McGinnis ante in shaving mugs, was obliged to leave the town.  McGinnis hung upon the handle of the Redmond mug a goodly card bearing the legend, “Gone, but not forgotten.”  Shortly after that McGinnis himself left town.  Alas! at the instance of the widow the barber hung upon the McGinnis mug a similar card; it having appeared that McGinnis had emigrated without paying either his board bill or his barber’s bill.

This evidence of his early delinquency now confronted McGinnis as he stepped into the shop for the first time in these years.  He regarded it with displeasure.  “Take it off,” said he to the barber, sternly.  “I paid the widdy in Butte, two years ago.  As for yourself, I have come six hundred miles to pay my bill to you.  Take it out of that.”  He presented his heavy button of gold.

The barber protested that he could not make change on this basis, but cheerfully extended the credit.  He was glad to see McGinnis back again, for he was most promisingly hairy.

“I am back, but I’ll not be stayin’ long,” said McGinnis.  “Have ye annything to drink?”

The barber mournfully shook his head, even as had Billy Hudgens.  McGinnis, refusing to believe such heavy news, walked up to the mantle, picked up a tall bottle labelled “Hair tonic,” smelled of it, and without asking leave, raised it to his lips and drained it to the bottom.