“Harvey Wheelwright, of course.  Whom did you think I meant?”

“He is a very estimable writer,” returned Barbran primly, quite ignoring my other query.

“Good-night, Barbran,” said I sadly.  “I’m going out to mourn your lost soul.”

One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of one’s own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square.  But not at all on this occasion.  There sat Phil Stacey.  I challenged him at once.

“What did you do it for?”

To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand.  “Pay,” said he.

“Phil!  Did you take money for that stuff?”

“Not exactly.  I’m taking it out in trade.  I’m going to eat there.”

“You’ll starve to death.”

“I haven’t got much of an appetite.”

“The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets.  An uninterrupted diet of Harvey Wheelwright—­”

“Don’t speak the swine’s name,” implored Phil, “or I’ll be sick.”

“You’ve sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, probably indigestible at that.”

“I don’t care,” he averred stoutly.  “I don’t care for anything except—­Dominie, who told you her father was a millionaire?”

“It’s well known,” I said vaguely.  “He’s a cattle king or an emperor of sheep or the sultan of the piggery or something.  A good thing for Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her cellar going.  The kind of people who read Har—­our unmentionable author, don’t frequent Bohemian coffee cellars.  They would regard it as reckless and abandoned debauchery.  Barbran has shot at the wrong mark.”

“The place has got to be a success,” declared Phil between his teeth, his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination.

“Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West,” I suggested.  The boy winced.

What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically.  Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means.

Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward innovations.  Thornsen’s Elite Restaurant has always sufficed for our inner cravings.  We are, I suppose, too old to change.  Nor does Harvey Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us.  We let the little millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone.  She advertised feebly in the “Where to Eat” columns, catching a few stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn’t come.  Until the first of the month, that is.  Then too many came.  They brought their bills with them.