Immediately hands are laid upon his arm, and turning he beholds a woman.
“God bless you, sir. You saved my life. I cannot find words to thank you,” she says, between her hysterical sobs.
“Then don’t worry about trying. What I did wasn’t much,” is his characteristic answer.
“Oh, sir! my life is not of much value to me, but to another it may be. Tell me your name—where I can find you after I have seen him.”
He notes curious glances cast upon them, and desires to break away.
“A letter to Claude Wycherley at the Sherman House would reach me. But I beg of you to forget all about it,” he adds.
Reporters are as thick as peas, and he would avoid them if possible, not wanting to figure in a sensation. Wycherley is so retiring in his disposition, so modest withal, that any such notoriety might embarrass him exceedingly.
“Where have I seen that woman before? Don’t ever recollect meeting her in the Hotel des Vagabonde, now, alas! no more; and yet her face seems so familiar to me. Give it up. Where now, my dear boy? The clock strikes four. Daylight will be along—even now I see it creeping up over the lake. To pass the time until then—ah! here’s a bootblack’s chair. Quite an idea. I’ll keep it warm until it’s time for breakfast,” saying which he sits down and dozes.
The great city is waking up. As day comes wagons rumble by and working people with buckets in hand swing past to their labors. Soon the shrill cry of the newsboy is heard in the land.
“Tribune—Times—Inter-Ocean!”