"Not at all," said Barnes. "My desire to stake you to the comforts and dignity your station deserves remains unchanged. If you will bear with me until I have finished shaving I will go with you to Mr. Jones and show him the colour of your money."
Mr. Rushcroft grinned shamelessly. "My daughter was right when she said another thing to me," he observed, sitting down once more.
"She appears to be more or less infallible."
"A woman in a million," said the star. "She said that I wouldn't make a hit with you if I attempted to put on too much side. I perceive that she was right,—as usual."
"Absolutely," said Barnes, with decision.
"So I'll cut it out," remarked Rushcroft quaintly. "I will be everlastingly grateful to you, Mr. Barnes, if you'll fix things up with Jones. God knows when or whether I can ever reimburse you, but as I am not really a dead-beat the time will certainly come when I may begin paying in installments. Do we understand each other?"
"We do," said Barnes, and started downstairs with him.
Half an hour later Barnes succeeded in striking a bargain with Putnam Jones. He got the two rooms at the end of the hall at half price, insisting that it was customary for every hotel to give actors a substantial reduction in rates.
"You shall be treasurer and business-manager in my reorganized company," said Rushcroft. "With your acumen and my eccentricity united in a common cause we will stagger the universe."
Despite his rehabilitation as a gentleman of means and independence, Mr. Rushcroft could not forego the pleasure of staggering a small section of the world that very night. He was giving Hamlet's address to the players in the tap-room when Barnes came downstairs at nine o'clock. Bacon and Dillingford having returned earlier in the evening with the trunks, bags and other portable chattels of the defunct "troupe," Mr. Rushcroft was performing in a sadly wrinkled Norfolk suit of grey which Dillingford was under solemn injunction to press before breakfast the next morning.