h starvation."

"Good!" he said. "And now all you have to do is to think of what the
excuse you will give my lady boss will be."

With that he lay back against the cushions and waited. He seemed to feel
that the matter did not concern him any more, and that the rest of it
lay with me.

"Go ahead!" I said to him. "I have no idea what I shall tell your
mistress, but since I have lost the last train I must try to catch the
two o'clock trolley car to Westeote, and I do not wish to spend any more
time than necessary on this business. Make all the haste possible, and
as we go I shall think what I will say when we get there."

The driver got out and took his seat and started the car. I was worried,
indeed, my dear. I tried to think of something plausible to tell the
young man's employer; something that would have an air of self-proof,
when suddenly I remembered the half-filled nursing-bottle and the three
auburn-red curls. Why should I not tell the lady that a poor mother,
while proceeding down Fifth Avenue from her scrub-woman job, had been
taken suddenly ill, and that I, being near, had insisted that this
automobile help me convey the woman to her home, which we found, alas!
to be in the farthest districts of Brooklyn? Then I would produce the
three auburn-red curls and the half-filled nursing-bottle as having been
left in the automobile by the woman, and this proof would suffice.

I had fully decided on this when the automobile stopped in front of a
large house in Fifth Avenue, and I had time to tell the driver that
I had thought of the proper thing to say, but that was all, for the
waiting lady came down the steps in great anger, and was about to begin
a good scolding, when she noticed me sitting in her automobile.

If she had been angry before she was now furious, and she was the kind
of young woman who can be extremely furious when she tries. I think
nothing in the world could have calmed her had she not caught sight of
my face by the light of two strong lamps on a passing automobile. She
saw in my face what you see there now, my dear--the benevolent, fatherly
face of a settled-down, trustworthy, married man of past middle age--and
as if by magic her anger fled and she burst into tears.

"Oh, sir!" she cried, "I do not know who you are, nor how you happen
to be in my car, but at this moment I am homeless and friendless. I am
alone in the world, and I need advice. Let me get into the car beside
you--"

"Miss," I