“How unfortunate!” I said.
“There was an application yesterday in behalf of a desperately needy old fellow, but what hair he has left is red, and Mrs. Gritts put her foot down. He simply did not fit into her scheme of the pictorial effect. All of our people have that silvery, well-bred-pensioner look.”
“But where does your fun come in?” I asked, with real curiosity.
“Oh, I don’t know. I inherited a lot of charities from my mother. Here’s Ammerlin’s. Will you wait for me? I shall only be a moment.”
“More socks?”
“No,—some new curtains for the Directors’ room at the Littlewick Hospital. You must wait. I haven’t seen anything of you, and you will be running back to New York. You might as well wait here. I know how men hate these stores.”
“If you insist upon my not going with you—”
It was thus that I happened to be sitting in the hansom when Dick Fentley came hustling up the street.
“Hello, old man!” he shouted. “What the deuce are you doing here?”