"No, sir, I didn't."
The man lied placidly; the master looked at him, then laughed.
"Poor old Burgess," he said aloud as though to himself; "there wasn't a skinful in that bottle. Well, I can't get drunk, I can't lie here and count from six to midnight and keep my sanity, I can't smoke—you rascal, where's my cigar? And I certainly can't go out anywhere because I haven't any money."
"You might take the air on the avenue, sir. Your clothes are in order."
"Poor Burgess! That was your amusement, wasn't it?—to see me go out discreetly perfumed, in fine linen and purple, brave as the best of them in club and hall, in ballroom and supper room, and in every lesser hell from Crystal Palace cinders to Canal.
"Poor Burgess! Even the seventy-five pretty waitresses at the Gaities would turn up their seventy-five retrousse noses at a man with pockets as empty as mine."
"Your clothes are fashionable. So is your figger, sir."
"That settles it?" protested the young fellow, weak with laughter. "Burgess, don't go! Don't ever go! I do need you. Oh I do want you, Burgess. Because there never will be anybody exactly like you, and I've only one life in which to observe you, study you, and mentally digest you. You won't go, will you?"
"No sir," said Burgess with dignity.