That he was not actually at the end of his resources went for nothing; he
held the distinction a quibble, mockingly immaterial,--like the store of
guineas in his pocket, too insignificant for mention when contrasted with
his needs. And his base of supplies, the American city of his nativity,
whence--and not without a glow of pride in his secret heart--he was wont to
register at foreign hostelries, had been arbitrarily cut off from him by
one of those accidents sardonically classified by insurance and express
corporations as Acts of God.

Now to one who has lived all his days serenely in accord with the dictates
of his own sweet will, taking no thought for the morrow, such a situation
naturally seems both appalling and intolerable, at the first blush. It must
be confessed that, to begin with, Kirkwood drew a long and disconsolate
face over his fix. And in that black hour, primitive of its kind in his
brief span, he became conscious of a sinister apparition taking shape at
his elbow--a shade of darkness which, clouting him on the back with a
skeleton hand, croaked hollow salutations in his ear.

"Come, Mr. Kirkwood, come!" its mirthless accents rallied him. "Have you
no welcome for me?--you, who have been permitted to live the quarter of a
century without making my acquaintance? Surely, now, it's high time we were
learning something of one another, you and I!" "But I don't understand,"
returned Kirkwood blankly. "I don't know you--"

"True! But you shall: I am the Shade of Care--"

"Dull Care!" murmured Kirkwood, bewildered and dismayed; for the visitation
had come upon him with little presage and no invitation whatever.