“Ah! Aleck, my dear boy, this is living. Just think what fortune has done for me in a short twenty-four hours. I believe I’m on the highroad to success. There are many lovely girls here, and backed by substantial dads, but I shall not commit myself. I can’t quite forget the black eyes of the Spanish cigar girl at the Fair, who made such a sieve of my heart that it would do for a housewife’s use. But this is very pleasant, dear boy, exceedingly so. I fancy our host looks careworn.”
“I’ve seen that all along. It may be anxiety about the coming of his son John, who, as you may have noticed, has not yet shown up.”
“Yes, and it may be with reference to that momentous telegram he was expecting,” declares Wycherley, who has not forgotten.
“Have you seen anything of the Turk?”
“Jove! you didn’t expect him here—no, you’re joking; but I have met someone I know. What did I tell you about his ability to get there?”
“I’m in a fog, Claude.”
“Well, look down the room—just bowing over the hand of Miss Dorothy—I never dreamed he was a society man.”
“Bless me! Why, it’s Rocket!”
“Bob Rocket, dead sure. Listen, the old gentleman introduces him to the banker’s wife—she who sparkles with a fortune of diamonds worth a king’s ransom. What does he say?”
“Mrs. Bondclipper, allow me to introduce an old friend of mine, Colonel Robert Rocket of Colorado. I met him on a Western trip years ago, when he was in the Legislature. Our Western men are coming to the front, you know, and I believe the colonel represents some of these great mines you hear so much about in the papers.”