“Hello, Doc!” called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. “Hie spy! Come on out!”

“Oh, how d'ye do, captain!” responded Doc. “How are you? I was just interviewing my solicitor.”

“Sorry,” said Murtha. “The inspector wants to see you.”

Doc flinched.

“But they've just let me go!” he protested faintly.

“It's one of those old indictments-Chicago Water Front or something. Anyhow-Here! Hold on to yourself!”

He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of falling.

“Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!” For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing.

“Not in this state,” answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel took hold upon him. “What were you going to do?”

“I was going to retire, captain,” said Doc faintly. “My daughter's husband-he owned a farm up in Cayuga County-well, he died and I was planning to go up there and live with her.”

“And sting all the boobs?” grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. “How much money have you got?”

“Seventy-five cents.”

“How much is the ticket?”

“About nine dollars,” quavered Doc. “But I know a man down on Chatham Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining Company; I could get the money that way.”

“What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?” asked Murtha sharply.

“It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow pasture-she doesn't know anything about it-”

“Oh, hell!” exclaimed Murtha. “Come along to the station. I'll let you have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the underwriting.”

That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the eleventh time the “Lives of the Chancellors” when Miranda, who had not yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling.

“She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt,” grinned Miranda, swinging her dishrag, “'case you and she used to live tergidder when you was a young man.”

This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression.

“It must be Mrs. Effingham,” he remarked, closing the career of Lord Eldon and removing his feet from the fender.

“Dat's who it is!” answered Miranda. “She's downstairs waitin' to come up.”

“Well, let her come,” directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room.

“I'm afraid you don't recognize me,” she said with a pitiful attempt at faded coquetry. “I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!”

“I should have recognized you anywhere,” he protested gallantly. “Do sit down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!”

He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked it behind the old lady's back.

Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of beauty in her face.

“I've come to you, Mr. Tutt,” she explained apologetically, “because I always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I should go to help me out.”

“What greater compliment could I receive?”

“Well, in those days I never thought that time would come,” she went on. “You remember my husband-Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little Jimmy-our eldest-he was only fourteen when you boarded with us-he was killed at the Front last July.” She paused and felt for her handkerchief, but could not find it. “I still keep the house; but do you know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the youngest-and I haven't told her anything about it.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. “What haven't you told her about?”

“My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl-she really ought to live out West somewhere, the doctor says-and Jim and I had saved up all these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live on. We saved twelve thousand dollars-and put it into Government bonds.”

“You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate,” remarked the lawyer. “I think you did exceedingly well.”

“Now comes the awful part of it all!” exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping her hands. “I'm afraid it's gone-gone forever. I should have consulted you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board that I never thought.”

“Have you got rid of your bonds?”

“Yes-no-that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company for me.”

Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall Street's near-financiers.

“Where on earth did you meet Badger?” he demanded.

“Why, he boarded with me-for a long time,” she answered. “I've no complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying anything that might be taken against him-but lately I've heard so many things-”

“Don't worry about Badger!” growled Mr. Tutt. “How did you come to invest in his oil stock?”

“I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he was real nice about it-he said anybody who had been living there in the house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy stock.”

At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently and uttered a smothered ejaculation.

“Of course I didn't have any ready money,” explained Mrs. Effingham, “but I had the bonds-they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was going to pay twenty-and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent interest. I was making the difference-fifteen hundred dollars every year.”

“What has it paid?” demanded Mr. Tutt ironically.

“Twenty per cent,” replied Mrs. Effingham. “I get Mr. Badger's check regularly every six months.”

“How many times have you got it?”

“Twice.”

“Well, why don't you like your investment?” inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. “I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!”

“Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the ladies-that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you-the one with the curls?-she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid on it at all-and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. Badger had been arrested once for something-and-and-Oh, I wish I hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have anything to live on after I'm dead-and she's too sick to work. What do you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock back?”