"One of the girls. They take it in turns to sit in the dressing-room of evenings to hear the latest. It's like an aviary, they say. Coo-bird! coo! now me! now you! You was good to me when I was ill, Ruth, he says last night. Now I am going to give you a treat. I'm going to take you to Paree for the week-end on my way back to India."
Ernie came closer. He looked ugly.
"If I catch any of you girls in there——"
"Baa-a-a!" mocked the naughty one. "Who was caught in there himself?"
Ernie was now extraordinarily alert and vivid. The old sleepy benevolence had vanished: he was listening at last to that voice which none of us can afford to neglect, the voice which says at all times, to all men in all places—
Beware!
Salvation Joe took a professional and proprietory interest in the change, which for some obscure reason he attributed to his own direct intervention in heavenly places.
"What is it then?" he asked. "Has HE found you at last?"
Ernie, who as he gathered strength, gained also in flippancy, replied:
"There was ninety-and-nine, you mean. That lay. No, sir, He ain't found me. I've found IT though."