“Aren’t you ashamed to say that your friends are becoming few, when only yesterday you made a thousand new ones all at once?” replied Kate, indignantly. “At the same time, I do think you ought to dine with your Oxygen gentleman; who knows but what he may prove a fairy godfather in disguise, and your future may turn from this very evening! Yes, decidedly, you must go and dine with him, and you can come out home on the midnight train. In the meantime I shall have told father and mother all about you, so that they may be prepared to receive you with due honor.”
“Be sure you tell them every thing,” said Myles, “for if you don’t I shall. I am not going to row this race under any but my own true colors.”
“Yes, of course, I shall have to mention the one little neglect of duty that Mr. Haxall, hateful man! has made such a mountain of; but I think it would be just as well, dear, not to say any thing about the other cause of your being dismissed. It would only make them feel badly; and, as such a thing can never possibly happen again, why, what is the use?”
Then sunny-faced Kate had to hurry away to catch her train, but she left Myles so much happier and more hopeful than he was when she knocked at his door that he could hardly realize how wretched he had been.
“I tell you what,” he said to himself as he dressed for dinner, “a good sister is one of the best things a fellow can have in this world.”
Myles reached the Oxygen some time before the hour set for dinner, and was in the reading-room when his friend entered.
“My dear boy, I am very glad you were able to come,” said the old gentleman, advancing toward him with outstretched hand and beaming face. “I wanted to meet you this evening on purpose to congratulate you. There, not a word! I know what your modesty prompts you to say; but I read the whole story in the morning paper, and have felt proud of my proxy all day. I hope the _Phonograph_ people have rated you a handsome increase of salary in view of the glory you have shed upon them.”
“On the contrary,” said Myles, “they have dismissed me from the paper.”
“They did not find it so,” replied Myles; “but, to tell the truth, I was not dismissed for what I did, but rather for what I did not do.”