“Here you are,” he cried, “browner and thinner than ever!  Give me that bag.  How did you leave my friend the Shah of Persia?”

“Better,” I said, stepping into the open carriage, “since he got on the water-wagon—­uses nothing but Eastridge silver-plated ice-pitchers now.”

“And my dear friend the Empress of China?” he asked, as he got in beside me.

“She has recovered her digestion,” I answered, “due entirely to the abandonment of chop-sticks and the adoption of Eastridge knives and forks.  But now it’s my turn to ask a question.  How are you?”

“Well,” said he.  “And the whole family is well, and we’ve all grown tremendously, but we haven’t changed a bit, and the best thing that has happened to us for three years is seeing you again.”

“And the factory?” I asked.  “How does the business of metallic humbug thrive?”

“All right,” he answered.  “There’s a little slackening in chafing-dishes just now, but ice-cream knives are going off like hot cakes.  The factory is on a solid basis; hard times won’t hurt us.”

“Well, then,” said I, a little perplexed, “what in Heaven’s name did you mean by sending that—­”

“Hold on,” said Talbert, gripping my knee and looking grave for a moment, “just you wait.  I need you badly enough or else the telegram never would have gone to you.  I’ll tell you about it after supper.  Till then, never mind—­or, rather, no matter; for it’s nothing material, after all, but there’s a lot in it for the mind.”

I knew then that he was in one of his fundamental moods, imperviously jolly on the surface, inflexibly Puritan underneath, and that the only thing to do was to let the subject rest until he chose to take it up in earnest.  So we drove along, chaffing and laughing, until we came to the dear, old, ugly house.  The whole family were waiting on the veranda to bid me welcome home.  Mrs. Talbert took my hands with a look that said it all.  Her face had not grown a shade older, to me, since I first knew her; and her eyes—­the moment you look into them you feel that she understands.  Alice seemed to think that she had become too grown-up to be kissed, even by the friend of the family; and I thought so, too.  But pretty Peggy was of a different mind.  There is something about the way that girl kisses an old gentleman that almost makes him wish himself young again.

At supper we had the usual tokens of festivity:  broiled chickens and pop-overs and cool, sliced tomatoes and ice-cream with real strawberries in it (how good and clean it tasted after Ispahan and Bagdad!) and the usual family arguing and joking (how natural and wholesome it sounded after Vienna and Paris!).  I thought Maria looked rather strenuous and severe, as if something important were on her mind, and Billy and Alice, at moments, had a conscious air.  But Charles Edward and Lorraine were distinctly radiant, and Peggy was demurely jolly.  She sounded like her father played on a mandolin.