“Harry, this was you; you started it.  Didn’t you try to hurt Hobart?”

I nodded.

My mother took me by the hand and drew me away.

“He is a rascal, Mrs. Fenton, and has a temper like sin; but he will tell the truth, thank goodness.”

I am telling this not for the mere relation, but by way of introduction.  It was my first meeting with Hobart Fenton.  It is necessary that you know us both and our characters.  Our lives are so entwined and so related that without it you could not get the gist of the story.  In the afternoon I came across the street to play with Hobart.  He met me smiling.  It was not in his healthy little soul to hold resentment.  I was either all smiles or anger.  I forgot as quickly as I battled.  That night there were two happy youngsters tucked into the bed and covers.

So we grew up; one with the other.  We played as children do and fought as boys have done from the beginning.  I shall say right now that the fights were mostly my fault.  I started them one and all; and if every battle had the same beginning it likewise had the same ending.  The first fight was but the forerunner of all the others.

Please do not think hardly of Hobart.  He is the kindest soul in the world; there never was a truer lad nor a kinder heart.  He was strong, healthy, fat, and, like fat boys, forever laughing.  He followed me into trouble and when I was retreating he valiantly defended the rear.  Stronger, sturdier, and slower, he has been a sort of protector from the beginning.  I have called him the Rear Guard; and he does not resent it.

I have always been in mischief, restless, and eager for anything that would bring quick action; and when I got into deep water Hobart would come along, pluck me out and pull me to shore and safety.  Did you ever see a great mastiff and a fox terrier running together?  It is a homely illustration; but an apt one.

We were boys together, with our delights and troubles, joys and sorrows.  I thought so much of Hobart that I did not shirk stooping to help him take care of his baby sister.  That is about the supreme sacrifice of a boy’s devotion.  In after years, of course, he has laughed at me and swears I did it on purpose.  I do not know, but I am willing to admit that I think a whole lot of that sister.

Side by side we grew up and into manhood.  We went to school and into college.  Even as we were at odds in our physical builds and our dispositions, so were we in our studies.  From the beginning Hobart has had a mania for screws, bolts, nuts, and pistons.  He is practical; he likes mathematics; he can talk to you from the binomial theorem up into Calculus; he is never so happy as when the air is buzzing with a conversation charged with induction coils, alternating currents, or atomic energy.  The whole swing and force of popular science is his kingdom.  I will say for Hobart that he is just about in line to be king of it all.  Today he is in South America, one of our greatest engineers.  He is bringing the water down from the Andes; and it is just about like those strong shoulders and that good head to restore the land of the Incas.