calmly and
with polite courtesy, as they did him, and he felt that if he must
later pay for this moment it was worth the paying.

Then he gave the waiter a couple of dollars out of his own pocket and
wrote Van Bibber's name on the check, and walked in state into the
cafe, where he ordered a green mint and a heavy, black, and expensive
cigar, and seated himself at the window, where he felt that he should
always have sat if the fates had been just. The smoke hung in light
clouds about him, and the lights shone and glistened on the white
cloths and the broad shirt-fronts of the smart young men and
distinguished foreign-looking older men at the surrounding tables.

And then, in the midst of his dreamings, he heard the soft, careless
drawl of his master, which sounded at that time and in that place like
the awful voice of a condemning judge. Van Bibber pulled out a chair
and dropped into it. His side was towards Walters, so that he did not
see him. He had some men with him, and he was explaining how he had
missed his train and had come back to find that one of the party had
eaten the dinner without him, and he wondered who it could be; and then
turning easily in his seat he saw Walters with the green mint and the
cigar, trembling behind a copy of the London Graphic.

"Walters!" said Van Bibber, "what are you doing here?"

Walters looked his guilt and rose stiffly. He began with a feeble "If
you please, sir--"

"Go back to my rooms and wait for me there," said Van Bibber, who was
too decent a fellow to scold a servant in public.

Walters rose and left the half-finished cigar and the mint with the ice
melting in it on the table. His one evening of sublimity was over, and
he walked away, bending before the glance of his young master and the
smiles of his master's friends.

When Van Bibber came back he found on his dressing-table a note from
Walters stating that he could not, of course, expect to remain longer
in his service, and that he left behind him the twenty-eight dollars
which the dinner had cost.

"If he had only gone off with all my waistcoats and scarf-pins, I'd
have liked it better," said Van Bibber, "than his leaving me cash for
infernal dinner. Why, a servant like Walters is worth
twenty-eight-dollar dinners--twice a day."

The Hungry Man was Fed

Young Van Bibber broke one of his rules of life one day and came
down-town. This unusual journey into the marts of trade and finance
was in resp