"Perhaps _you'll_ tell me where she is, sir," said he patiently.

"Leave it to me," said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an unquenchable thirst
for the dramatic in real life. "And keep next Sunday night open."

She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at
her studio, of David's "Doggy" from the "Grass and Asphalt" sketches
which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, pathetic little
conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the streets, as
expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we borrowed
Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he played
it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right
places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and
only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a
check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the
time to settle accounts, but she never could repay--and so forth and so
on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might
accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out
the truth.

"Oh, _Dominie_!" said the girl, with such reproach that my heart sank
within me. "Do you think that was fair? Don't you know that I never
could have taken the money?"

"Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn't
have you dying on the premises," I argued with a feeble attempt at
jocularity.

"But from _him_!" she said. "After what had happened--And his mother.
How could you let me do it!"