“Well, you know, I couldn’t leave her loose in Wolftown-on-the-Hudson.  I suppose she thought the first person she inquired of would say:  ’George Brown?—­why, yes—­lemme see—­he’s a short man with light-blue eyes, ain’t he?  Oh yes—­you’ll find George on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, right next to the grocery.  He’s bill-clerk in a saddle-and-harness store.’  That’s about how innocent and beautiful she is.  You know those little Long Island water-front villages like Greenburg—­a couple of duck-farms for sport, and clams and about nine summer visitors for industries.  That’s the kind of a place she comes from.  But, say—­you ought to see her!

“What could I do?  I don’t know what money looks like in the morning.  And she’d paid her last cent of pocket-money for her railroad ticket except a quarter, which she had squandered on gum-drops.  She was eating them out of a paper bag.  I took her to a boarding-house on Thirty-second Street where I used to live, and hocked her.  She’s in soak for a dollar.  That’s old Mother McGinnis’ price per day.  I’ll show you the house.”

“What words are these, Tripp?” said I.  “I thought you said you had a story.  Every ferryboat that crosses the East River brings or takes away girls from Long Island.”

The premature lines on Tripp’s face grew deeper.  He frowned seriously from his tangle of hair.  He separated his hands and emphasized his answer with one shaking forefinger.

“Can’t you see,” he said, “what a rattling fine story it would make?  You could do it fine.  All about the romance, you know, and describe the girl, and put a lot of stuff in it about true love, and sling in a few stickfuls of funny business—­joshing the Long Islanders about being green, and, well—­you know how to do it.  You ought to get fifteen dollars out of it, anyhow.  And it’ll cost you only about four dollars.  You’ll make a clear profit of eleven.”

“How will it cost me four dollars?” I asked, suspiciously.

“One dollar to Mrs. McGinnis,” Tripp answered, promptly, “and two dollars to pay the girl’s fare back home.”

“And the fourth dimension?” I inquired, making a rapid mental calculation.

“One dollar to me,” said Tripp.  “For whiskey.  Are you on?”

I smiled enigmatically and spread my elbows as if to begin writing again.  But this grim, abject, specious, subservient, burr-like wreck of a man would not be shaken off.  His forehead suddenly became shiningly moist.

“Don’t you see,” he said, with a sort of desperate calmness, “that this girl has got to be sent home to-day—­not to-night nor to-morrow, but to-day?  I can’t do anything for her.  You know, I’m the janitor and corresponding secretary of the Down-and-Out Club.  I thought you could make a newspaper story out of it and win out a piece of money on general results.  But, anyhow, don’t you see that she’s got to get back home before night?”