“My jeans, coat and vest,” shrieked “Swithin,” tearing his hair, while Mark writhed with laughter.
“And there were fifteen or twenty sous in an inside pocket besides,” moaned “Swithin.”
“I know Monsieur Hector’s hang-out,” said the secretary, “and if you like I will go and choke the pawn tickets out of the pair.”
“Couldn’t do better if you tried,” opined Mark, “for no doubt by this time they have devoured the proceeds of their brigandage. Hurry, before they sell the tickets.”
We found Hector and his brother-bandit behind a magnum of fake champagne, gourmandizing at the Dead Cat, a newly opened restaurant destined to become famous in Bohemia.
“Sure,” they said, “we borrowed old Swithin’s old clothes, but expected to bring them back before seven. We are now waiting for the angel who promised to relieve our financial distress, which is only momentary, of course.”
They gave up the tickets willingly enough, and we repaired to Mont de Piété in Rue Lepic.
“Mountain of Pity—a queer name for a hock shop,” said Mark when I related the redemption of Swithin’s clothes. “I once knew a three-hundred-pound Isaac in ’Frisco, but that is another story.”
“AMBITION IS A JADE THAT MORE THAN ONE MAN CAN RIDE”
We had been talking about changing one’s luck at the Eccentric Club, London, and Mark said: “All is personal effort, there is no such thing as anything interfering for one’s advantage or the opposite.”