"Five bucks. You'd better write and make a date."
"All right," said Duggie. "But I know I shall look a frightful fool."
About a week later I ran into him between the acts at the Knickerbocker. The old boy was beaming.
"Reggie," he said, "you did me the best turn anyone's ever done me, sending me to Mrs. Darrell."
"Mrs. Darrell?"
"You know. Dorothea. Her real name's Darrell. She's a widow. Her husband was in some regiment, and left her without a penny. It's a frightfully pathetic story. Haven't time to tell you now. My boy, she's a marvel. She had hardly looked at my hand, when she said: 'You will prosper in any venture you undertake.' And next day, by George, I went down to the Booles' and separated young Roderick from seventy dollars. She's a wonderful woman. Did you ever see just that shade of hair?"
"I didn't notice her hair."
He gaped at me in a sort of petrified astonishment.
"You—didn't—notice—her—hair!" he gasped.
I can't fix the dates exactly, but it must have been about three weeks after this that I got a telegram: