"Sure, and I'll collar it if so be he comes this way. So-long, Frank. Dinner at twelve, sharp. Remember that, if you happen along. 'Taint a genuine Christmas feed, but beggars ain't got a right to be choosers. If I had my way I'd be in a different place to-day. Luck's agin me, I reckon. TheyVe gone, and I'm out in the cold!"
With that they left him there, muttering to himself. Frank had caught those significant last sentences. He really began to feel something of the same curiosity creep over him that had captured Lanky.
"He speaks my name as if he had known me a long time. Lanky said the same; and there's Lef Seller, he seems to be on to his ways from the ground up. Besides, he mentioned the drug clerk's name. Now, you see he doesn't pay any attention to you, Ralph. That may be because you're a newcomer in Columbia; only been here a year and a half, all told. H'm! I wonder if he is somebody we once knew? Lanky declares it is so, and I'm beginning to thing so too."
But he was determined that he would not be so foolish as his friend, and allow the perplexing mystery to annoy him. So he cast it away, and started to speak of other things connected with their morning sport.
Presently they reached Clifford.
