Lord Loveland's habit was to give a wide berth to common people, if Chance, the democrat, threw him near them, with the exception of "Tommies," who for him as a soldier were a class by themselves—a class in which he recognised humanity that touched his own. He did not love ugliness or shabbiness, which as like as not meant microbes; but he had come down so near to the depths of reality tonight, that he had no sense of his own superiority, or inclination to shrink away when the man's hands touched his as they took the rescued animal.

"I came along in the nick of time," said Loveland, "and I like dogs. I thought I could just do it, and I did."

"'Twas fine, all the same," repeated the dog's master. "I ain't much of a public speaker, but I guess you know how I feel, all right. 'Twould 'a pretty near put me out o' business if——" He did not finish his sentence, but the tenderness with which he tucked into his pocket the wretched little apology for a dog made further words superfluous.

Loveland, always polite to inferiors, unless overmastered by rage, looked at the bench as if it were the first comer's property.

"If you don't mind, I'll sit down," he said.

The shabby one laughed. "I ain't paid for my lodgings," said he, "and if I had, you'd be welcome—after what you done. You can have me for a doormat if you like."

"Thanks," said Loveland, laughing, too. "I don't need a doormat. If it was an overcoat, now——"

"You could have mine, if you weren't twice the size for it, and if Anthony Comstock wouldn't run me in if he saw what I've got on underneath. But I guess you wouldn't have to wish twice for a coat, if 'twas in your part."

"My part?" repeated Val.

"If the piece you're in called for it."

"I don't understand."

They were both sitting down now, filling the far corners of the bench, and talking across it.

"Well, 'tain't my show. I don't want to be fresh. But though I've seen a lot o' night-bloomin' plants growin' in this flower garden, I don't just recall seein' one like you take root."

"You wouldn't now, if I had anywhere else to go," returned Loveland, with his usual frankness.

"Gee! You take me for the fall guy. But say, do you want anything out o' me? 'Cause, if you do, you can have it. If you're a journalist out on a night stunt, and what you're fishin' for is the history o' my life, I'm on, for Shakespeare's sake. Any form you like, sad or gay, moral lesson or otherwise."

"Hang journalists!"

"Think so? Well, millionaire then, seein' how the poor live. You look the swell all right."

"Thank you. Wish I felt as I look, then."

"You'd make the Gould and Vanderbilt crowd look like visitors, if you hadn't forgot your overcoat."

"I left it at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel——"

"Sa—ay, if that ain't like me!" drawled the man, the twinkle of moonlight striking a humourous glint in his eye. "Kind of absent-minded. I left my Sunday suit just that way at the White House last week, where I'd been spending Saturday to Monday with my friend Willy T."

"You think I'm lying?" said Loveland, with curiosity rather than resentment.

"Just kiddin'."

"You're mistaken. They turned me out of the hotel——"

"Gee! But you was there?"

"Yes."

"If that ain't the swell thing! I wouldn't mind bein' turned out, if once they'd let me in. I should say to myself, 'Well, sir, you've lived.' That's what I never have done, but what I'm always meanin' to do, when my time comes. Say, would it be offensive if I asked why they—er——"

"Turned me out? I couldn't pay for my dinner."

"Had you eat it?"

"No. I wish now I had."

"I believe you. Whe—ew! Just to eat once at the Waldorf!"

"I had lunch there," said Val, beginning to be a little warmer, because he was amused.

"Bet it was bully."

"I wasn't hungry—then."

"Pity! Still," the man at the other end of the bench murmured reflectively, "you've got it to remember, and I guess a lot of other nice things."

"If that were any comfort!"

"'Twould be to me. Say, I don't throw myself out much to strangers, but you saved my dog for me, while I was snoozin' like a sick dormouse, and there's somethin' about you kind o' gets me. Suppose we swop stories,—if you really ain't on in this act. If you're not kiddin'—playin' some game—if you're here because you're stumped, why maybe I might put you up to somethin'—see? Wasn't there a verse in the Bible about a lion and a mouse?"

"I think the lion and the mouse were Æsop," said Val.

"Never heard of the gent. But anyhow, I caught on to it in Sunday School—when I was a kid, I'm dead sure of that, and I always was a quoter. You ain't a New Yorker, are you?"

"No. I'm an Englishman," Loveland answered quickly.

"Gee, but you're a swell-lookin' emigrant! I ain't a New Yorker myself—not by birth. I was a hayseed till I turned nineteen; workin' on my stepfather's farm—mean old skinflint, but I couldn't see my way to cuttin' till my mother was gone. Then I footed it to New York—sixty mile—chuck full of hope, and nothin' else, unless beans."

"A regular Mark Tapley," said Val.

"Never played the part. In private life my name's Bill Willing: some switches it round to Willing Bill, because I generally do my day's work without howlin'; I blew into New York without attractin' much notice, and that's nineteen years ago, and I haven't attracted much since, that's a fact. But you may do better. Don't be discouraged by a setback, if your game's square, and I bet it is, or you wouldn't be in the dog savin' business. What is your lay, anyhow?—excuse the liberty."

"Retrieving my fortune," said Val, after a moment's reflection.

"You can see me one better. Mine's to make yet, and I'm no kid—like you. I won't see thirty-eight again. I'm an artist. But New York ain't woke up to my talent. Maybe I've been too versatile. That never did pay. The line I'd mapped out was paintin' pictures, but my chance was slow comin'. Had to take what I could get on the way along: supin', sandwichin', barkin'——"

"Eh, what?" broke in Loveland.

"You don't savvy? Oh, supin' in theatres. There's several, specially one in the Bowery, wouldn't 'a been complete without me for years, till I got the chuck like you did at the Waldorf. Sandwichin'—why, you know what that is, sure? You wouldn't think how you get the cramps shut up between the boards? The sandwichin' was generally in the theatrical line, too, so I've always kind of hovered around the profession, though I don't say I'm proud of my career as a barker in the dimes—museums, you know. There was money in the business, though, if the freaks hadn't caught on that I had the heart of a soft boiled egg—always ready to part if they worked the aged mother dodge, or the baby brother who threw fits. I ain't no penny-in-the-slot savings bank. Wish I was. I should be better off now. Besides, my voice ain't an automobile horn, and barkin' for a couple of seasons stove a hole in my top note. After that, no manager would take me with a pound of tea and a chromo, but one of my old govs switched me onto a job paintin' freak showboards, and I'd 'a been at it yet if freaks didn't last too long. Once you've put them on the boards, there they are. At present my speciality's meenoos."

Val looked blank, thinking of emus.

"French for grub cards. A swell like you ought to be on to that. But I'm just thinkin' what there is for you. This stunt of mine I dropped into by luck. 'Twas Shakespeare introduced me—like he did to you tonight."

"Why Shakespeare?" Loveland cut in.

"Oh, there's a—a girl in that story: actress in the theatre where I suped—a real actress, mind you, a Fascinator from Fascinatorville. Why Lil so much as looked at me, I don't know—but she did. I was near twice her age, and 'twould have been playin' the game too low down to try and hook onto her, though I was tempted—she was so pretty, so good to me. I don't know what would 'a been the upshot, if the property man, who had his eye on the gal, hadn't got me the sack, and Lil an engagement on the road. She and I drifted apart. I never wrote, though she asked me to; I knew 'twas better not, for her. But you see why I'm nuts on the dog. He was hers, and Shakespeare was her name for him. She loved Shakespeare's plays, and her ambition was to act in 'em. But all that's somethin' I wouldn't 'a mentioned—if you hadn't kind of earned the right to Shake's history. I was tellin' you about my speciality, and how Shake introduced me to it. We was on our beam ends, Shake and me, our ribs showin' through the silk. One mornin' after a night out—like this, only in a square downtown, I was circulatin' around till I blew into Twelfth Street, and dropped my eyes onto a new restaurant, with a good fried smell, and an idea hit my brain like a hammer. In I walks and offers to swop it with the boss for a dinner. He wasn't takin' any just then, but I talked till I waked him up, showed him what I could do in the art line, and began to work on the spot with a grand new thing in meenoos. I've been at it ever since, and though the pay don't go up by leaps and bounds, the house has, and lots o' the eaters say it's my work's made it what it is—brought in the public like a flock of sheep. I get two meals and three dimes a day out of the job, and I wouldn't be sleepin' in my country house tonight, if I hadn't run acrost a guy who needed my money more than I did. Well, it's all in the day's work; and I guess there ain't many swells have got a finer palace than this, though it's kind of draughty. Your castle across the pond ain't got a finer park, I bet?"

"My castle's full of draughts, too," Loveland humoured him.

"So you came over here to get out of 'em?"

"Exactly."

"And that fortune you want to retrace, or retrieve. Wisht I could help."

"I'm expecting a cablegram in the morning, that will put me all right, thank you," said Loveland. "You're a good chap, and I'm glad to have met you, for you've—er—broadened my outlook, as well as passed the time. I've only to worry through till tomorrow."

"That's some hours off," said Bill Willing. "Wisht I could invite you to my hotel where I hang out when I'm not at my country place, but the trouble is to see the colour of your money, or you don't see the colour of their beds."

"How much is it for a room?" asked Loveland.

"Oh, a room! I don't run to a room. A bed in a vast wilderness is good enough for me. But a quarter'll get you one. Three nickels for a bed."

Loveland searched his pockets, and dubiously exhibited two silver coins mixed democratically with a few nickels and impotent looking little coppers. The prospect appeared hopeless to him, but Willing exclaimed with delight.

"Gee! Forty-five cents! You're a bloated millionaire. You might be asleep in two beds at the Bat Hotel, instead of cooling in this ice-cream freezer."

"If there's the price of two beds, you must have one," said Loveland.

"Thank you. You're the real stuff," returned Bill, gratitude in his voice. "But I'm O. K. where I am. You stick to your stamps. I know just how you feel. I'm always chuckin' my last cent away on some poor dickybird, thinkin' 'twill be all right tomorrow and what's the odds."

"There are no odds against me this time," Val assured him. "You've cheered me up no end, and you must share what I have. But about the hotel?"

"It's clean all right. Mayn't be the Plaza or the Waldorf, but no dive. It's warm, and the rooms are real natty."

"What about food?" asked Loveland. "Can we run to it?" and he glanced at the coins in his hand.

"Keep the change. We'll eat for nothing. Now's our time to join the Bread Line."

Again Val looked blank, and again it was necessary for Bill Willing—guide, philosopher and friend—to explain. There were, said he, two very important lines drawn every night in New York for the benefit of the poor: the Bread Line and the Bed Line. Each was drawn in a public square; the former in Herald, the latter in Madison; and both were traced by the finger of Charity.

The Bed Line, Bill did not often patronize, because he could generally pay for his own sleeping accommodation, and if he couldn't, there were always the Parks. Besides, the parson chap who spoke in Madison Square every night for the benefit of the poor, could collect only money enough to supply a limited number of men with beds. There was such a long line waiting, always, and the unlucky ones went away into the night looking so disappointed. Bill couldn't bear that, or the thought that one more must go bedless because he had got in ahead. As for the Bread Line, that was different. There was usually enough to feed the whole line, with coffee thrown in. It was a good show, too, and sometimes when Bill had separated himself from his last coin, and wanted a little cheerful company, he linked onto the Bread Line. Tonight they would both go. "Unless," added Mr. Willing, "you're afraid some o' your swell friends may spot you?"

Even if Loveland had been afraid, he would have denied the imputation. "You're the only friend, swell or otherwise, that I have in New York," said he.