“Yes, I know,” Billy soothed the frightened old woman, “but the trouble is Miss Dolores doesn't know hers—and something tells me if she does, she'll forget it. She'll take you in her arms and kiss you, sure as death and taxes.”
And she did! “My lamb, my lamb,” sobbed Mother Jenks the next morning, and rested her old cheek, with its rum-begotten hue, close to the rose-tinted ivory cheek of her ward. “Me—wot I am—an' to think———”
“You're a sweet old dear,” Dolores whispered, patting the gray head; “and I'm going to call you Mother.”
“Mr. William H. Geary,” the girl remarked that night, “I know now why your friend Mr. Webster sent that cablegram. I think you're a scout, too.”
For reasons best known to himself Mr. Geary blushed furiously. “I—I'd better go and break the news to Mother,” he suggested inanely. She held out her hand; and Billy, having been long enough in Sobrante to have acquired the habit, bent his malarial person over that hand and kissed it. As he went out it occurred to him that had the lobby of the Hotel Mateo been paved with eggs, he must have floated over them like a Wraith, so light did he feel within.