' I listened
to your voice and I remarked to my inner consciousness, 'that voice
lingers somewhere in the depths of of memory.' I turn your face to the
light, and lo and behold! I reveal to my astonished gaze the features
of my old friend, Ralph.
"No tongue can tell my great delight,
At seeing you again to-night.
"Of course it isn't night yet, you know, but the pressing exigencies of
rhyme often demand the elimination, as it were, of a small portion of
time."
Ralph was glancing uneasily about the room. "Gran'pa Simon ain't
anywheres around is he?" he asked, letting his eyes rest, with careful
scrutiny, on a drunken man asleep in a chair in a dark corner.
"No, my boy," answered Joe, "he isn't. I haven't seen the dear old
saint, for, lo, these many moons. Ah!--let me see! did you not leave
the patriarch's sweet home circle, somewhat prematurely, eh?
"Gave the good old man the slip
Ere the cup could touch the lip?"
"Yes," said Ralph, "I did. I run away. He didn't use me right."
"No, he didn't, that's so. Come, be seated--tell me about it. Oh!
you needn't fear. I'll not give it away. Your affectionate grandpa
and I are not on speaking terms. The unpleasant bitterness of our
estrangement is sapping the juices of my young life and dragging the
roses from my cheeks.
"How sad when lack of faith doth part
The tender from the toughened heart!"
Rhyming Joe had drawn two chairs near to the stove, and had playfully
forced Ralph into one of them, while he, himself, took the other.
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