'Are you Mike?'
'No, sir. But I am his representative, and have full authority to act on his behalf. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?'
The man's whole attitude made him seem so like a large-hearted elder brother that William felt no diffidence about confiding in him. He placed an elbow on the counter and a foot on the rail, and spoke with a sob in his voice.
'Suppose the only girl you had ever loved had gone and got engaged to another, what in your view would best meet the case?'
The gentlemanly bar-tender pondered for some moments.
'Well,' he replied at length, 'I advance it, you understand, as a purely personal opinion, and I shall not be in the least offended if you decide not to act upon it; but my suggestion—for what it is worth—is that you try a Dynamite Dew-Drop.'
One of the crowd that had gathered sympathetically round shook his head. He was a charming man with a black eye, who had shaved on the preceding Thursday.
'Much better give him a Dreamland Special.'
A second man, in a sweater and a cloth cap, had yet another theory.
'You can't beat an Undertaker's Joy.'