“Then he asked me all about you; asked me if I’d hired you and what you’d found out for me. Naturally, I didn’t want to tell him too much. I was a little vague in my replies. Being a perfect stranger except for that one time when he’d dropped the money, I didn’t feel like telling him all of my private affairs. I told him that he could get in touch with you, and you could tell him all about it.”
“Then what?”
“Then he said that the young woman who had sent me a present wanted to see me. Unfortunately, she couldn’t come to me, but if I could come to her, she’d appreciate it very much. He said that we could have dinner together and then he could drive me home after I’d seen her.”
“Go ahead.”
“Perhaps you don’t realize how humdrum and routine our lives become. It’s a peculiar type of loneliness. We’re in the middle of a big city. People stream past us. We get so we know them. We hear their steps, recognize them almost as definitely as though we could see them; but they never speak to us. When they do, it’s just a patronizing little expression of sympathy. You’d prefer they didn’t say anything.”
Bertha nodded; then realizing that he couldn’t see the nod, said, “I understand. That is, I can understand enough to see what you’re getting at. Go ahead. Give me the facts just as fast as you can.”
“Well, naturally, I jumped at the chance to break away from my old routine and enjoy some normal companionship.”
Bertha Cool, thinking that statement over, said abruptly, “You had a lot of dough on you when you came to my office. Is begging that profitable?”
He smiled. “As it happens, there is perhaps a bare existence in begging. I don’t keep any books on it. My income is quite independent of that.”
“Then why do you drag yourself down to sit on the sidewalk and—”