“How much is the ticket?”

“About nine dollars,” quavered Doc.  “But I know a man down on Chatham Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining Company; I could get the money that way.”

“What’s the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?” asked Murtha sharply.

“It’s a company I’m going to organize.  I’ll tell you a secret, Murtha.  There’s a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa’s cow pasture—­she doesn’t know anything about it—­”

“Oh, hell!” exclaimed Murtha.  “Come along to the station.  I’ll let you have the nine bones.  And you can put me down for half a million of the underwriting.”

* * * * *

That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the eleventh time the “Lives of the Chancellors” when Miranda, who had not yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master’s meager supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling.

“She said you’d know her sho’ enough, Mis’ Tutt,” grinned Miranda, swinging her dishrag, “’case you and she used to live tergidder when you was a young man.”

This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since he was quite used to Miranda’s forms of expression.

“It must be Mrs. Effingham,” he remarked, closing the career of Lord Eldon and removing his feet from the fender.

“Dat’s who it is!” answered Miranda.  “She’s downstairs waitin’ to come up.”

“Well, let her come,” directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well provided with husband, three children and a going business.  Indeed, it required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered little old lady in widow’s weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room.

“I’m afraid you don’t recognize me,” she said with a pitiful attempt at faded coquetry.  “I don’t blame you, Mr. Tutt.  You don’t look a day older yourself.  But a great deal has happened to me!”

“I should have recognized you anywhere,” he protested gallantly.  “Do sit down, Mrs. Effingham won’t you?  I am delighted to see you.  How would you like a glass of toddy?  Just to show there’s no ill-feeling!”

He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked it behind the old lady’s back.

Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously.  She was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of beauty in her face.