Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/73

 and whom none could reproach, was his friend; Alexander and the horse Bucephalus. But best was that gentle robber Robin Hood, the not impossible Galahad, and the sinner Launcelot. And closer perhaps, more historical, though no more human, Drake, Hawkins, Grenville, and all the gentlemen adventurers.

"If he doesn't spend his life in an office because he gets an idea that he ought to," said Judge Tyler to the doctor, "he'll discover a continent and build a city where the first spotted cow he sees lies down, fight every one in sight, and make periodic trips to Hades to talk it over with his old friends."

There was some truth in that.

The years were good to Tom Beauling under his friend's kind roof. People spoke of them not as a man and his adopted son who had turned out well, but as Damon and Pythias. The evening years of the one and the dawning years of the other were not a separation but a bond. Of the stock in the gigantic trust Life, the one was short and the other was