ughing, "I overlooked the impudence of your question, too.
But now is your time, Burgess. If I wanted you I'd have to put up
with your insolence, I suppose."

"But you don't want me, sir."

"Which restrains you," said Philip, laughing. "Oh, go on, my
friend. Don't say 'sir' to me; it's a badge of servitude pasted
onto the vernacular. Say 'Hi!' if you like."

"Sir?"

"Hell! I say don't behave like a servant to me."

"I _am_ a servant, sir."

"You're not mine."

"Yes, sir, I am. Will you wear this coat this evening, sir?"

"God knows," said the young fellow, sitting down and gazing about
at the melancholy poverty of the place. . . . "Is there any of
that corn whisky?"

"No, sir."

"Damn it, you said there was this morning!"

"No, sir, I didn't."

The man lied placidly; the master looked at him, then laughed.

"Poor old Burgess," he said aloud as though to himself; "there
wasn't a skinful in that bottle. Well, I can't get drunk, I can't
lie here and count from six to midnight and keep my sanity, I can't
smoke--you rascal, where's my cigar? And I certainly can't go out
anywhere because I haven't any money."

"You might take the air on the avenue, sir. Your clothes are in
order."

"Poor Burgess! That was your amusement, wasn't it?--to see me go
out discreetly perfumed, in fine linen and purple, brave as the
best of them in club and hall, in ballroom and supper room, and in
every lesser hell from Crystal Palace cinders to Canal.

"Poor Burgess! Even the seventy-five pretty waitresses at the
Gaities would turn up their seventy-five retrousse noses at a man
with pockets as empty as mine."

"Your clothes are fashionable. So is your figger, sir."

"That settles it?" protested the young fellow, weak with laughter.
"Burgess, _don't_ go! Don't _ever_ go! I do need you. Oh I _do_
want you, Burgess. Because there never will be anybody exactly
like you, and I've only one life in which to observe you, study
you, and mentally digest you. You _won't_ go, will you?"

"No sir," said Burgess with dignity.

CHAPTER VI

There was incipient demoralisation already in the offices of Craig
& Son. Young gentlemen perched on high benches still searched city
maps and explored high-way and by-way with compass and
pencil-point, but their ears were alert to every shout from the
streets, and their interest remained centred in the newspaper
bulletins across the way, where excited crowds clamoured for