An hour later, in his brother-in-law’s trap, Julius drove to the station to meet his guest.  Kirke Waldron, descending from the train, found his old schoolmate, younger than himself, but well remembered as the imp of the High School, waiting for him on the station platform.

“Mighty glad to be sure of you,” Julius declared, shaking hands.  “Until I actually caught sight of you I was still expecting a wire saying you couldn’t afford even the one day.”

“The coast is clear,” Waldron answered, returning the grip with equal vigor.  “I closed every account at midnight and have my one day as free as air.”

“The question is,” Julius lost no time in beginning, as the two walked along the trim, flower-bordered suburban platform toward the waiting trap, “what sort of a day do you want?  Outdoors, of course; no question of that in hot weather.  But—­with people or away from them?  I can take you to my sister’s for luncheon; to tell the truth, she’s counting on that.  But afterward I have a little plan to carry you up into the mountains to a place I know for an all-afternoon tramp and a dinner at the best little inn in the country.  Back in the late evening, a dash down to our river and a swim by moonlight.  How does that programme suit you?”

“It’s great,” agreed Kirke Waldron decidedly.  “Nothing could suit me better.  Vacation, to me, means outdoors always.  And it’s a long time since I’ve done any tramping in the home State.”

“I knew you weren’t one of the hammock-and-novel vacation sort,” Julius said as he put his new-old friend into the trap.  “I’m not myself.  Though”—­he confessed with honesty—­“I have been known to sit with my heels in the air for a longer consecutive period than you’ve ever done if all your sittings were lumped together.”

“What do you know as to where I’ve kept my heels?”

“On the ground, planting one before the other without rest, day in and day out, ever since I first knew you.  That’s why you’re where you are; it doesn’t take a soothsayer to tell that.”

Waldron laughed.  “You’re a flatterer,” he said.

Julius shook his head.  “Not a bit of it.  It’s written all over you.  If I got caught in the middle of an earthquake anywhere, and the ground stopped shaking and I looked around me to find out what to do next, and my eye fell on you out of hundreds bunched around me, I should simply—­follow you out of the mess!”

“That’s a great tribute,” Waldron admitted, “from a fellow whom I used to know as the cleverest at getting himself out of scrapes of all the boys who were resourceful in getting into them.”

“Having exchanged large-sized bouquets,” Julius observed with sudden gravity, “we will now drive home.  Do you know I’m mighty sorry my sister Dorothy isn’t there?  You remember her, do you?—­or maybe you don’t.  She was just a ‘kid’ with a couple of long tails of hair down her back.  My second sister, Barbara—­we call her ’Bud’—­was in your class, I believe.  She remembers you all right; says she was tremendously impressed by the way you slew the fractions on the blackboard.  Bud married Jack Elliot, as I told you yesterday; and a great old boy he is, too, for a brother-in-law.”