And, oh, yes, he had almost forgotten!  He and Nat were going up to Laguerre’s, on the Bronx, to an old French cafe, where they often lunched and painted; that Nat had suggested just as he left the studio that it would be a good thing if Felix and that dear child Masie would go with them, and that they would go Saturday, which was to-morrow, if that would suit O’Day and Masie.  And if that wouldn’t suit, why then they’d go the very first day that did, say Sunday or Monday, the sooner the better.

To all of which Felix, reading every thought that lurked behind the moist eyes of the tender-hearted old fraud, had replied that, if he had the choosing, to-morrow, of all the days in the year, would be the very day he would select, and that he and Masie would be ready any hour that he and Mr. Ganger would be good enough to call for them.

At which the old painter took himself off in high glee.

And an altogether delightful and a very happy party it was.  Sam, as host-in-chief, sparing no expense, his first act being to pre-empt a summer-house covered with vines, already tinged by the touches of autumn’s fingers; and his second to insist in a loud voice on chairs and table-cloths, instead of a sandwich spread out on a bench, as had been their custom, followed by a demand for olives and a small bottle of red wine, to say nothing of a double brace of chops, and all with the air of a multimillionaire ordering a cold bottle and a hot bird at Delmonico’s.  And Nat, grown ten years younger —­a mere boy in fact—­showed Masie how to throw little leaden weights down the throat of a small cast-iron frog, and Felix mixed the salad and served it, Masie changing the dishes and running back to the house for fresh ones, while Fudge, in frenzied glee, scurried over the soft earth as if he had suddenly been seized with St. Vitus’s dance.  And then, when there was not a crumb of anything left even for the chippies, they all stretched themselves flat on the grass in the warm Indian summer weather, the two old fellows entertaining the child with all the stories they could think of, Felix looking on, replenishing his pipe from time to time, his own spirit soothed and comforted by the happiness around him.

Even Kitty noticed the new light in his eyes when they all came back, for Felix brought the two old painters into her sitting-room so that they might renew an acquaintance they had made on the night of the ball and “become better known to a woman of distinction,” as he laughingly put it, which so delighted the dear soul that that night she said to her husband: 

“He’ll stop trampin’ pretty soon, I think, John.  Somethin’s soaked into him in the last day or two.  It’s them old painters, I think, that’s helpin’ him.  He come in a while ago with that child clingin’ to him and them two mossbacks followin’ behin’, and his face was all ironed out, and I could see a song trembling on his lips all ready to burst out.  Pray God it’ll last!”