continued, "to meet a want--a hiatus--a demand--a need--an exigency--a
requirement of exactly five dollars."

I was driven to emphasis by the premonition that I was to lose one of
the dollars on the spot.

"I don't want to borrow any," said Tripp, and I breathed again. "I
thought you'd like to get put onto a good story," he went on. "I've
got a rattling fine one for you. You ought to make it run a column
at least. It'll make a dandy if you work it up right. It'll probably
cost you a dollar or two to get the stuff. I don't want anything out
of it myself."

I became placated. The proposition showed that Tripp appreciated past
favors, although he did not return them. If he had been wise enough
to strike me for a quarter then he would have got it.

"What is the story?" I asked, poising my pencil with a finely
calculated editorial air.

"I'll tell you," said Tripp. "It's a girl. A beauty. One of the
howlingest Amsden's Junes you ever saw. Rosebuds covered with dew--
violets in their mossy bed--and truck like that. She's lived on Long
Island twenty years and never saw New York City before. I ran against
her on Thirty-fourth Street. She'd just got in on the East River
ferry. I tell you, she's a beauty that would take the hydrogen out
of all the peroxides in the world. She stopped me on the street and
asked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she could
find _George Brown in New York City!_ What do you think of that?

"I talked to her, and found that she was going to marry a young
farmer named Dodd--Hiram Dodd--next week. But it seems that George
Brown still holds the championship in her youthful fancy. George had
greased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to make
his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg,
and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the
scratch Ada--her name's Ada Lowery--saddles a nag and rides eight
miles to the railroad station and catches the 6.45 A.M. train for
the city. Looking for George, you know--you understand about women--
George wasn't there, so she wanted him.

"Well, you know, I couldn't leave her loose in Wolftown-on-the-Hudson.
I suppose she thought the first person she inquired of would say:
'George Brown?--why, yes--lemme see--he's a short man with light-blue
eyes, ain't he? Oh yes--you'll find George on One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street, right next to the grocery. He's bill-clerk in
a saddle-and-harnes