“Hello, old fire-eater!” cried Cressey.  “Some little hero, aren’t you!  Bully work, my boy.  I’m proud to know you....  What; quarters?  Easiest thing you know.  I’ve got the very thing—­just like a real-estate agent.  Let’s see; this is your Monday at Sherry’s, isn’t it?  All right.  I’ll meet you there.”

Providentially, as it might appear, a friend of Cressey’s, having secured a diplomatic appointment, was giving up his bachelor apartment in the select and central Regalton.

“Cheap as dirt,” said the enthusiastic Cressey, beaming at Banneker over his cocktail that evening.  “Two rooms and bath; fully furnished, and you can get it for eighteen hundred a year.”

“Quite a raise from the five dollars a week I’ve been paying,” smiled Banneker.

“Pshaw!  You’ve got to live up to your new reputation.  You’re somebody, now, Banneker.  All New York is talking about you.  Why, I’m afraid to say I know you for fear they’ll think I’m bragging.”

“All of which doesn’t increase my income,” pointed out the other.

“It will.  Just wait.  One way or another you’ll capitalize that reputation.  That’s the way New York is.”

“That isn’t the way I am, however.  I’ll capitalize my brains and ability, if I’ve got ’em; not my gun-play.”

“Your gun-play will advertise your brains and ability, then,” retorted Cressey.  “Nobody expects you to make a princely income shooting up toughs on the water-front.  But your having done it will put you in the lime-light where people will notice you.  And being noticed is the beginning of success in this-man’s-town.  I’m not sure it isn’t the end, too.  Just see how the head waiter fell all over himself when you came in.  I expect he’s telling that bunch at the long table yonder who you are now.”

“Let him,” returned Banneker comfortably, his long-bred habit of un-self-consciousness standing him in good stead.  “They’ll all forget it soon enough.”

As he glanced over at the group around the table, the man who was apparently acting as host caught his eye and nodded in friendly fashion.

“Oh, you know Marrineal, do you?” asked Cressey in surprise.

“I’ve seen him, but I’ve never spoken to him.  He dines sometimes in a queer little restaurant way downtown, just off the Swamp.  Who is he, anyway?”

“Puzzle.  Nobody in the clubs knows him.  He’s a spender.  Bit of a rounder, too, I expect.  Plays the Street, and beats it, too.”

“Who’s the little beauty next him?”

“You a rising light of Park Row, and not know Betty Raleigh?  She killed ’em dead in London in romantic comedy and now she’s come back here to repeat.”

“Oh, yes.  Opening to-night, isn’t she?  I’ve got a seat.”  He looked over at Marrineal, who was apparently protesting against his neighbor’s reversed wine-glass.  “So that’s Mr. Marrineal’s little style of game, is it?” He spoke crudely, for the apparition of the girl was quite touching in its youth, and delight, and candor of expression, whereas he had read into Marrineal’s long, handsome, and blandly mature face a touch of the satyr.  He resented the association.