“You know the Little Red Doctor?”

“I met him,” he replied evasively.  “He told me to look you up.  ’You talk to the Dominie,’ he says.”

“About what?”

“I’m coming to that.”  He leaned forward to place a muscular and confidential hand on my knee.  “First, I’d like to do you a little favor,” he continued in his husky and intimate voice.  “If you’re looking for some quick and easy money, I got a little tip that I’d like to pass on to you.”

“Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a tottering ruin, which may be quite true; but if it’s a matter of investing in the Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion Concession, I’m reluctantly compelled—­”

“Forget it!” adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which secured my silence and almost my confidence.  “This is a hoss.  Seven to one, and a sure cop.  I know hosses.  I’ve owned ’em.”

“Thank you, but I can’t afford such luxuries as betting.”

“You can’t afford not to have something down on this if it’s only a shoestring.  No?  Oh—­well!”

Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow.  Catching the scent hot and fresh, Susan Gluck’s Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or rather, nose, voluptuously.

“Mm-m-m!  Snmmff!” inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic nostrils.  “Mister, lemme smell it some more!”

Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief.  “Like it, kiddie?” he said.

“Oh, it’s grand!” She stretched out her little grimy paws.  “Please, Mister,” she entreated, “would you flop it over ’em, just once?”

The pink man tossed it to her.  “Take it along and, when you get it all snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me.”

“Oh, gracious!” said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty.  “Can I have it till to-morrah?”

“Sure!  What’s the big idea for to-morrow?”

“I’m goin’ to a funeral.  I want it to cry in,” said the Orphan importantly.

“A funeral?” I asked.  “In Our Square?  Whose?”

“My cousin Minnie.  She’s goin’ to be buried in God’s Acre, an’ I’m invited ’cause I’m a r’lation.  She married a sporting gentleman named Hines an’ she died yesterday,” said the precocious Orphan.

So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched.  She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, defiant note she left under the door.  Her father and mother must wait and not worry.  There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are buried just such letters as Minnie’s farewell to her parents; rebellious, passionate, yearning, pitiful.  Ah, well!  The moth must break its chrysalis.  The flower must rend its bonds toward the light.  Little Minnie was “going on the stage.”