“Good man!” approved the Reverend Morris Cartwright. “What'll you have?” he added.
“Frankfurters and a glass of milk, if it's an open order. But you'll have to fetch it to me from Schwartz's. I can't leave this here skittish little pet of mine.”
Then and there some Sunday supplement missed a “throbbing human-interest story” in that no reporter was present to witness one of New York's fashionable young pastors emerging from an obscure saloon bearing food and drink to the grimy driver of an all-night thunder-wagon.
“And now,” said Cyrus the Gaunt, handing down the empty glass, “if it isn't one of your disgraceful secrets, what are you doing in this galley? Heading off some poor unfortunate who wants to go to the devil peacefully, in his own way?”
“No, I leave that to the doctors,” retorted the other mildly.
“Quite so,” chuckled Cyrus. “Throw some water in my face and drag me to my corner, will you?”
“This is an errand of diplomacy,” continued Cartwright. “I'm an envoy. Do you happen to know which house—” His ranging vision fell upon the row of figures joyously dancing in the window. “Never mind,” he said, “I've found it.” He disappeared between the portals of the old-fashioned, hospitable door.
Quite a considerable part of his week's wages would Cyrus the Gaunt have forfeited to interpret the visitor's expression when he came out, a long hour later. He looked at once harassed, regretful, and yet triumphant, as one might look who had achieved the object of a thankless errand.
The Bonnie Lassie came to the door with him and stood gazing out across the flaring lights and quivering shadows of Our Square. It seemed to Cyrus that the flower-face drooped a little.
And indeed the Bonnie Lassie was not feeling very happy. When one's adopted world goes well, the claims that draw one back become irksome ties. The messenger from the world which she had temporarily foregone was far from welcome. But at least she had claimed and won some months of respite and freedom for her work.