"Sweezy, don't you open your head about this business."
Vox was not in an amiable mood when he met the doctor the next Sunday night. He debated with him the inadvisability of decent people attempting to do slumming in the name of either religion or charity. He took the ground that the men who had themselves been rescued from the dens of the city were the only ones to do this work, as they train chetahs to hunt their own kind, and reformed thieves to become detectives.
The doctor was half inclined to agree with him, not so much from conviction as from seeing the disgust the business had wrought in the mind of his friend. Yet he excused himself for having led Vox into this experience on the ground that it is Christian duty to try to rescue the fallen, even though one does not accomplish anything.
"I don't believe in your theory," said Vox, warmly. "Let buzzards clean up the offal, but decent birds had better follow their sweeter instincts and keep away. One thing is certain: I am not going to light on such moral carrion again."
It was more than a month later when a respectable-looking stranger called upon Vox at his rooms. The singer was engaged at the time arranging with a lady of the Four Hundred for the vocal culture of her daughters. The visitor quietly awaited his leisure. He was very genteel in appearance. If one had been critical he might have thought that for such a stinging cold day an ulster would have been more suitable than the light fall overcoat he wore; and some might have observed that it was not the fashion that season to wear one's outer garment so short that the tails of the under-coat protruded. But Vox was occupied with the stranger's face, which was exceedingly prepossessing.
"Mr. Vox, I believe?"
"My name, sir. What can we do for each other?"
"If I am not mistaken in the person, you once did me a great service."
"You must be mistaken in the person," said Vox, "or else I have done it unconsciously, for I have no recollection of our having met."
The man seemed puzzled. "Possibly!" he said, slowly, as he scanned the singer's features.