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A Cold Greeting by Ambrose Bierce

The following is the complete text of Ambrose Bierce's A Cold Greeting. The various books, short stories and poems we offer are presented free of charge with absolutely no advertising as a public service from Internet Accuracy Project.


Visit these other works by Ambrose Bierce
The Applicant
An Arrest
At Old Man Eckert's
A Baby Tramp
A Baffled Ambuscade
The Baptism of Dobsho
The Boarded Window
The Bubble Reputation
Charles Ashmore's Trail
The City of the Gone Away
Corrupting the Press
The Coup de Grace
Curried Cow
A Diagnosis of Death
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
The Failure of Hope and Wandel
A Fruitless Assignment
George Thurston
Haita the Shepherd
A Horseman in the Sky
The Hypnotist
An Imperfect Conflagration
An Inhabitant of Carcosa
The Isle of Pines
John Bartine's Watch

Killed at Resaca
The Little Story
A Man with Two Lives
Mr. Masthead, Journalist
Mr. Swiddler's Flip-Flap
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Oil of Dog
One Officer, One Man
The Other Lodgers
Present at a Hanging
A Providential Intimation
A Psychological Shipwreck
The Race at Left Bower
A Revolt of the Gods
A Shipwreckollection
A Son of the Gods
The Spook House
Staley Fleming's Hallucination
The Thing at Nolan
Three and One Are One
Two Military Executions
An Unfinished Race
A Vine on a House
The Widower Turmore
A Wireless Message

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NOTE: We try to present these classic literary works as they originally appeared in print. As such, they sometimes contain adult themes, offensive language, typographical errors, and often utilize unconventional, older, obsolete or intentionally incorrect spelling and/or punctuation conventions.

A Cold Greeting by Ambrose Bierce

A COLD GREETING

by Ambrose Bierce


This is a story told by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco:

"In the summer of 1881 I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war. At its close he had settled in Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was to me sufficient evidence that the latter was in every way worthy of my confidence and esteem. At dinner one day Conway told me that it had been solemnly agreed between him and Barting that the one who died first should, if possible, communicate with the other from beyond the grave, in some unmistakable way--just how, they had left (wisely, it seemed to me) to be decided by the deceased, according to the opportunities that his altered circumstances might present.

"A few weeks after the conversation in which Mr. Conway spoke of this agreement, I met him one day, walking slowly down Montgomery street, apparently, from his abstracted air, in deep thought. He greeted me coldly with merely a movement of the head and passed on, leaving me standing on the walk, with half-proffered hand, surprised and naturally somewhat piqued. The next day I met him again in the office of the Palace Hotel, and seeing him about to repeat the disagreeable performance of the day before, intercepted him in a doorway, with a friendly salutation, and bluntly requested an explanation of his altered manner. He hesitated a moment; then, looking me frankly in the eyes, said:

"'I do not think, Mr. Foley, that I have any longer a claim to your friendship, since Mr. Barting appears to have withdrawn his own from me--for what reason, I protest I do not know. If he has not already informed you he probably will do so.'

"'But,' I replied, 'I have not heard from Mr. Barting.'

"'Heard from him!' he repeated, with apparent surprise. 'Why, he is here. I met him yesterday ten minutes before meeting you. I gave you exactly the same greeting that he gave me. I met him again not a quarter of an hour ago, and his manner was precisely the same: he merely bowed and passed on. I shall not soon forget your civility to me. Good morning, or--as it may please you--farewell.'

"All this seemed to me singularly considerate and delicate behavior on the part of Mr. Conway.

"As dramatic situations and literary effects are foreign to my purpose I will explain at once that Mr. Barting was dead. He had died in Nashville four days before this conversation. Calling on Mr. Conway, I apprised him of our friend's death, showing him the letters announcing it. He was visibly affected in a way that forbade me to entertain a doubt of his sincerity.

"'It seems incredible,' he said, after a period of reflection. 'I suppose I must have mistaken another man for Barting, and that man's cold greeting was merely a stranger's civil acknowledgment of my own. I remember, indeed, that he lacked Barting's mustache.'

"'Doubtless it was another man,' I assented; and the subject was never afterward mentioned between us. But I had in my pocket a photograph of Barting, which had been inclosed in the letter from his widow. It had been taken a week before his death, and was without a mustache."



~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~

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