In the swirl and tumult of the hotel lobby I ran across Mr. Daly’s comedian, the late James Lewis, of beloved memory, and I casually mentioned that I was going to call upon Mr. Daly in the evening at 8.  He looked surprised, and said he reckoned not.  For answer I handed him Mr. Daly’s note.  Its substance was:  “Come to my private den, over the theater, where we cannot be interrupted.  And come by the back way, not the front.  No. 642 Sixth Avenue is a cigar shop; pass through it and you are in a paved court, with high buildings all around; enter the second door on the left, and come up stairs.”

“Is this all?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you’ll never get in”

“Why?”

“Because you won’t.  Or if you do you can draw on me for a hundred dollars; for you will be the first man that has accomplished it in twenty-five years.  I can’t think what Mr. Daly can have been absorbed in.  He has forgotten a most important detail, and he will feel humiliated in the morning when he finds that you tried to get in and couldn’t.”

“Why, what is the trouble?”

“I’ll tell you.  You see——­”

At that point we were swept apart by the crowd, somebody detained me with a moment’s talk, and we did not get together again.  But it did not matter; I believed he was joking, anyway.

At eight in the evening I passed through the cigar shop and into the court and knocked at the second door.

“Come in!”

I entered.  It was a small room, carpetless, dusty, with a naked deal table, and two cheap wooden chairs for furniture.  A giant Irishman was standing there, with shirt collar and vest unbuttoned, and no coat on.  I put my hat on the table, and was about to say something, when the Irishman took the innings himself.  And not with marked courtesy of tone: 

“Well, sor, what will you have?”

I was a little disconcerted, and my easy confidence suffered a shrinkage.  The man stood as motionless as Gibraltar, and kept his unblinking eye upon me.  It was very embarrassing, very humiliating.  I stammered at a false start or two; then——­

“I have just run down from——­”

“Av ye plaze, ye’ll not smoke here, ye understand.”

I laid my cigar on the window-ledge; chased my flighty thoughts a moment, then said in a placating manner: 

“I—­I have come to see Mr. Daly.”

“Oh, ye have, have ye?”

“Yes”

“Well, ye’ll not see him.”

“But he asked me to come.”

“Oh, he did, did he?”

“Yes, he sent me this note, and——­”

“Lemme see it.”

For a moment I fancied there would be a change in the atmosphere, now; but this idea was premature.  The big man was examining the note searchingly under the gas-jet.  A glance showed me that he had it upside down—­disheartening evidence that he could not read.

“Is ut his own handwrite?”