"Pat, I have rescued the most beautiful damsel, and I have thrown a man named Julian Lamantia into the Thames. Does life hold any more?"
"There's some mud on your face, and you're as wet as if you'd been in the river yourself," said his lady.
The Saint had the priceless gift of not asking too much of life. He cast his bread with joyous lavishness upon the waters, and tranquilly assumed that he would find it after many days — buttered and thickly spread with jam. In his philosophy that night's adventure was sufficient unto itself; and when, twenty-four hours later, his fertile brain was plunged deep into a new interest that had come to him, he would probably have forgotten Ruth Eden altogether, if she had not undoubtedly recognized his name. The Saint had his own vanity.
Consequently, when she called him one afternoon and announced that she was coming to see him, he was not utterly dumbfounded.
She arrived about six o'clock, and he met her on the doorstep with a cocktail shaker in his hand.
"I'm afraid I left you very abruptly the other night," she said. "You see, I'd read all about you in the newspapers, and it was rather overpowering to find that I'd been talking to the Saint for three-quarters of an hour without knowing it. In fact, I was very rude; and I think it's awfully sweet of you to have me."
He sat her down with a dry Martini and a cigarette, and once again she felt the strange sense of confidence that he inspired. It was easier to broach the object of her visit than she had expected.
"I was looking through some old papers yesterday, and I happened to come across those shares I was telling you about — the last lot my mother bought. I suppose it was ridiculous of me to think of coming to you, but it occurred to me that you'd be the very man who'd know what I ought to do about them — if there is anything that can be done. I've got quite a lot of nerve," she said, smiling.
Simon slipped the papers out of the envelope she handed him and glanced over them. There were ten of them, and each one purported to be a certificate attributing to the bearer two hundred £ shares in the British Honduras Mineral Development Trust.
"If they're only worth the paper they're printed on, even that ought to be something," said the Saint. "The engraving is really very artistic."