I started. I had not seen Phenie for two or three weeks.
"I dare say she has gone home with one of the girls from the Bureau," I said, reassuringly.
I had been studying the young man's face in the meantime, and had decided that Mr. Dockett was a very good sort of a fellow. There was good material in him. It might be in a raw state, but it was very good material, indeed. He might be a butcher by trade, but surely he was the "mildest-mannered man" that ever felled an ox. His voice had a pleasant, sincere ring, and altogether he looked like a man with whom it might be dangerous to trifle, but who might be trusted to handle a sick baby, or wait upon a helpless woman with unlimited devotion.
"You don't have no idea who the girl might be?" he asked, gazing dejectedly into the crown of his hat. "'Tain't so late. I might find Phenie yit."
It happened, by the merest chance, that I did know where Nettie Mullin, in whose company I feared Phenie might again be found, boarded. That is to say, I knew the house but not its number, and standing as it did at a point where several streets and avenues intersect, its situation was one not easily imparted to another. I saw, by the look of hopeless bewilderment on Mr. Dockett's face, that he could have discovered the North-west Passage with equal facility.
I reflected, hesitated, formed a hasty resolution, and said:
"I am going out to attend a meeting, and I will show you where one of the girls, with whom I have seen Phenie, lives. You may find her there now."
The young man's face brightened a little. He expressed his thanks, and waited for me on the landing.
The house where Miss Mullin boarded was only a few squares away. It was one of a row of discouraged-looking houses, which had started out with the intention of being genteel but had long ago given up the idea.