f, and continued, "It's getting late and I've got to be over
at the show shop. So I'll tell you what to do next. You go out and get
a shave and a haircut and then go home and get cleaned up--you said you
had a room and other clothes, didn't you?"

Volubly he told her about the room at Mrs. Patterson's, and, with a
brief return of lucidity, how the sum of ten dollars was now due this
heartless society woman who might insist upon its payment before he
would again enjoy free access to his excellent wardrobe.

"Well, lemme see--" She debated a moment, then reached under the table,
fumbled obscurely, and came up with more money. "Now, here, here's
twenty more besides that first I gave you, so you can pay the dame her
money and get all fixed up again, fresh suit and clean collar and a
shine and everything. No, no--this is my scene; you stay out."

He had waved protestingly at sight of the new money, and now again he
blushed.

"That's all understood," she continued. "I'm staking you to cakes till
you get on your feet, see? And I know you're honest, so I'm not throwing
my money away. There--sink it and forget it. Now, you go out and do what
I said, the barber first. And lay off the eats until about noon. You
had enough for now. By noon you can stoke up with meat and
potatoes--anything you want that'll stick to the merry old slats.
And I'd take milk instead of any more coffee. You've thinned down
some--you're not near so plump as Harold Parmalee. Then you rest up for
the balance of the day, and you show here to-morrow morning about this
time. Do you get it? The Countess'll let you in. Tell her I said to, and
come over to the office building. See?"

He tried to tell her his gratitude, but instead he babbled again of how
much she was like Tessie Kearns. They parted at the gate.

With a last wondering scrutiny of him, a last reminder of her very
minute directions, she suddenly illumined him with rays of a compassion
that was somehow half-laughter. "You poor, feckless dub!" she pronounced
as she turned from him to dance through the gate. He scarcely heard the
words; her look and tone had been so warming.

Ten minutes later he was telling a barber that he had just finished a
hard week on the Holden lot, and that he was glad to get the brush off
at last. From the barber's he hastened to the Patterson house, rather
dreading the encounter with one to whom he owed so much money. He found
the house locked. Probably both of the Patt