During Ruggles’ stay in London the young fellow looked to it that Ruggles saw the sights, and the two did the principal features of the big town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. Dan took his friend every night to the play, and on the fourth evening Ruggles said: “Let’s go to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have learned this show by heart!” They had been every night to see Mandalay.
“Oh, you go on where you like, Josh,” the boy answered. “I’m going to see how she looks from the pit.”
Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had come from farther west, and had never heard anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He applauded the actress vigorously at the Gaiety at first, and after the third night slept through most of the performance. When he waked up he tried to discover what attraction Letty Lane had for Dan. For the young man never left Ruggles’ side, never went behind the scenes, though he seemed absorbed, as a man usually is absorbed for one reason only.
In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by a call.
“My dear Mr. Ruggles,” Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy fetched up, “why don’t you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr. Blair’s are welcome at Osdene.”
Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up “his family tree.”
“There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene,” laughed Galorey; “you can climb them all.” And Ruggles replied:
“I guess I wouldn’t find any O’Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of ’em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day.”
Galorey nodded. “That is just why I toddled in to see you!”
Ruggles’ caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner’s visit. There was a pile of papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe.