going to sit there on a bench till morning. There’s no use arguing with him. Is n’t he wonderful? I’m glad you’ll look after the little lady, Alice. I tell you those Babes in the Wood made my—that is, er—made Wall Street and the Bank of Eagle look like penny arcades.”
Miss von der Ruysling whisked Miss Bedford of Bedford County up to restful regions upstairs. When she came down, she put an oblong small pasteboard box into Pilkins’s hands.
“Your present,” she said, “that I am returning to you.”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Pilkins, with a sigh, “the woolly kitten.”
He left Clayton on a park bench, and shook hands with him heartily.
“After I get work,” said the youth, “I’ll look you up. Your address is on your card, isn’t it? Thanks. Well, good night. I’m awfully obliged to you for your kindness. No, thanks, I don’t smoke. Good night.”
In his room, Pilkins opened the box and took out the staring, funny kitten, long ago ravaged of his candy and minus one shoe-button eye. Pilkins looked at it sorrowfully.
“After all,” he said, “I don’t believe that just money alone will———”
And then he gave a shout and dug into the bottom of the box for something else that had been the kitten’s resting-place—a crushed but red, red, fragrant, glorious, promising Jacqueminot rose.
