A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a little sheaf of currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of clothes which lay on the counter.

“As nice a little lot as I’ve ever had in my shop!” Archie did not deny this.  It was, he thought, probably only too true.

“I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!” rhapsodised the proprietor.  “You’ll give ’em a treat!  What you going to do with ’em?  Carry ’em under your arm?” Archie shuddered strongly.  “Well, then, I can send ’em for you anywhere you like.  It’s all the same to me.  Where’ll I send ’em?”

Archie meditated.  The future was black enough as it was.  He shrank from the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery, with these appalling reach-me-downs.

An idea struck him.

“Yes, send ’em,” he said.

“What’s the name and address?”

“Daniel Brewster,” said Archie, “Hotel Cosmopolis.”

It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.

Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a now peaceful Ninth Avenue.  Out of the depths that covered him, black as the pit from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer him.  He could not, like the poet, thank whatever gods there be for his unconquerable soul, for his soul was licked to a splinter.  He felt alone and friendless in a rotten world.  With the best intentions, he had succeeded only in landing himself squarely amongst the ribstons.  Why had he not been content with his wealth, instead of risking it on that blighted bet with Reggie?  Why had he trailed the Girl Friend, dash her!  He might have known that he would only make an ass of himself, And, because he had done so, Looney Biddle’s left hand, that priceless left hand before which opposing batters quailed and wilted, was out of action, resting in a sling, careened like a damaged battleship; and any chance the Giants might have had of beating the Pirates was gone—­gone—­as surely as that thousand dollars which should have bought a birthday present for Lucille.

A birthday present for Lucille!  He groaned in bitterness of spirit.  She would be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and happiness, wondering what he was going to give her tomorrow.  And when to-morrow dawned, all he would be able to give her would be a kind smile.  A nice state of things!  A jolly situation!  A thoroughly good egg, he did not think!

It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him.  The sky was overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine.  There was a sort of sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood.  And then something splashed on his face.

It says much for Archie’s pre-occupation that his first thought, as, after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submitting samples for approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like a shower-bath, was that this was simply an additional infliction which he was called upon to bear, On top of all his other troubles he would get soaked to the skin or have to hang about in some doorway.  He cursed richly, and sped for shelter.