FALLON:  (To ’phone.) Give me the room clerk, please.  Hello?  This is Mr. Fallon.  I’m expecting two gentlemen at five o’clock.  Send them right up.  And, not now, but when they come, send me up a box of your best cigars and some rye and seltzer.  Thank you. (Starts to leave telephone, but is recalled.) What?  A lady?  I don’t know any.  I don’t know a soul in New York!  What’s her name?  What—­Mrs. Tom Howard?  For heaven’s sake!  Tell her I’ll be there in one second!  What?  Why certainly!  Tell her to come right up. (He rises, muttering joyfully.) Well, well, well!

(Takes his coat from chair and puts it on.  Lifts valise from chair and places it behind writing desk.  Kicks boots under sofa.  Places cigar on edge of table in view of audience.  Looks about for mirror and finding none, brushes his hair with his hands, and arranges his tie.  Goes to door L. and opens it, expectantly.)

MRS. HOWARD enters.  She is a young woman of thirty.  Her face is sweet, sad, innocent.  She is dressed in white—­well, but simply.  Nothing about her suggests anything of the fast, or adventuress type.

Well, Helen!  This is fine!  God bless you, this is the best thing that’s come my way since I left Alaska.  And I never saw you looking better.

MRS. HOWARD:  (Taking his hand.) And, it’s good to see you, Dick.  (She staggers and sways slightly as though about to faint.) Can I sit down? (She moves to Morris chair and sits back in it.)

FALLON:  (In alarm.) What is it?  Are you ill?

MRS. HOWARD:  No, I’m—­I’m so glad to find you—­I was afraid!  I was afraid I wouldn’t find you, and I had to see you. (Leaning forward, in great distress.) I’m in trouble, Dick—­terrible trouble.

FALLON:  (Joyfully.) And you’ve come to me to help you?

MRS. HOWARD:  Yes.

FALLON:  That’s fine!  That’s bully.  I thought, maybe, you’d just come to talk over old times. (Eagerly.) And that would have been fine, too, understand—­but if you’ve come to me because you’re in trouble, then I know you’re still my good friend, my dear old pal.  (Briskly.) Now, listen, you say you’re in trouble.  Well, you knew me when I was down and out in San Francisco, living on free lunches and chop suey.  Now, look at me, Helen, I’m a bloated capitalist.  I’m a millionaire.

MRS. HOWARD:  (Nervously.) I know, Dick, and I’m so glad!  That’s how I knew you were here, I read about you this morning in the papers.

FALLON:  And half they said is true, too.  See those blue prints?  Each one of them means a gold mine, and at five, I’m to unload them on some of the biggest swells in Wall Street. (Gently.) Now, all that that means is this:  I don’t know what your trouble is, but, if money can cure it, you haven’t got any trouble.

MRS. HOWARD:  Dick, you’re just as generous and kind.  You haven’t changed in any way.