Donalds Homecoming

"By the Lord Harry, but I'm glad to see you back again, safe and sound,
you good-for-nothing old reprobate."

True to his written statement, Philip had come to Donald's apartment as
fast as a taxicab could bring him, after he had heard his old friend's
voice over the wire. Now the two men gripped hands, hard, and then--for
just a moment--flung their arms around each other's shoulders in a rare
outward display of their deep mutual affection.

Then Philip held his senior away at arms' length and said, with
masculine candor but with a look of sympathy in his eyes, "Don, you poor
devil, you've been killing yourself over there. Don't tell _me_. I've a
mind to appoint myself your physician and order you to bed for a month."

"Good Lord, do I look as bad as that?" laughed the other. "If I do,
looks are deceitful, for I feel fit as a fiddle. I need only one thing
to make a complete new man of me."

"And that is ...?"

"A secret, at present."

The two seated themselves opposite each other, and Philip continued,
"I've managed to keep myself pretty well posted on the work that you've
been doing, without knowing any of the details of your life--you're a
rotten correspondent. Come, did you have any 'hairbreadth' 'scapes or
moving accidents by field and flood?"