Then he found spirit enough for a pale, thin smile, faintly visible in a milky splash from an electric arc rocking by the vehicle in its flight.

"Aches like hell," he added. "Makes one feel a bit sickish."

"Anything I can do?"

"No—thanks. I'll be all right—as soon as I find a surgeon to draw that slug and plaster me up."

"That's the point: where am I to take you?"

"Home—the Monastery—Forty-third Street."

"Bachelor apartments?"

"Yes; I herd by my lonesome."

"Praises be!" muttered P. Sybarite, relieved.

For several minutes he had been entertaining a vision of himself escorting this battered and bloody young person to a home of shrieking feminine relations, and poignantly surmising the sort of welcome apt to be accorded the good Samaritan in such instances.