“At the Brook House.  It’s”—­

“Hold on!  ‘Brook House,’” Stacy repeated as he jotted it down.  “And for how long?”

“Oh, a day or two.  You see, Kitty”—­

Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then wrote down, “‘Day or two.’  Wife with you?”

“Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy!  Ah!” he went on, with a laugh, knocking aside the remonstrating pencil, “you must listen!  He’s just the sweetest, knowingest little chap living.  Do you know what we’re going to christen him?  Well, he’ll be Stacy Demorest Barker.  Good names, aren’t they?  And then it perpetuates the dear old friendship.”

Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote “Wife and child S. D. B.,” and leaned back in his chair.  “Now, Barker,” he said briefly, “I’m coming to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp.  Then we’ll talk Heavy Tree Hill, wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I’m all for business.  Have you any with me?”

Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out of Stacy’s memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager confidence and said, “Certainly; that’s just what it is—­business.  Lord!  Stacy, I’m all business now.  I’m in everything.  And I bank with you, though perhaps you don’t know it; it’s in your Branch at Marysville.  I didn’t want to say anything about it to you before.  But Lord! you don’t suppose that I’d bank anywhere else while you are in the business—­checks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you knew, old chap.  I didn’t want to talk to a banker nor to a bank, but to Jim Stacy, my old partner.”

“Barker,” said Stacy curtly, “how much money are you short of?”

At this direct question Barker’s always quick color rose, but, with an equally quick smile, he said, “I don’t know yet that I’m short at all.”

“But I do!”

“Look here, Jim:  why, I’m just overloaded with shares and stocks,” said Barker, smiling.

“Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice.  Barker, three years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your account at San Francisco.”

“Yes,” said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh.  “I remember I wanted to draw it out in one check to see how it would look.”

“And you’ve drawn out all in three years, and it looks d——­d bad.”

“How did you know it?” asked Barker, his face beaming only with admiration of his companion’s omniscience.

“How did I know it?” retorted Stacy.  “I know you, and I know the kind of people who have unloaded to you.”

“Come, Stacy,” said Barker, “I’ve only invested in shares and stocks like everybody else, and then only on the best advice I could get:  like Van Loo’s, for instance,—­that man who was here just now, the new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; and Carter’s, my own Kitty’s father.  And when I was offered fifty thousand Wide West Extensions, and was hesitating over it, he told me you were in it too—­and that was enough for me to buy it.”