A Damsel in Distress

'clock. InLittle Gooch Street all the children of all the small shopkeeperswho support life in that backwater by selling each other vegetablesand singing canaries were out and abou

wasbidding a silent farewell to a tomato which even he, though adauntless optimist, had been compelled to recognize as havingoutlived its utility. On all these things the sun shone with agenial smile. Round the corner, in Sha

e, notinfluenced by the success or failure of the productions whichfollowed one another at the theatre throughout the year; but hefelt, nevertheless, a sort of proprietary interest in theseventures, and was pleased when they secured the approval of thepublic. Last night's opening, a musical piece by an Ameri

young man ofabout twenty-seven, tall and well knit, with an agreeable,clean-cut face, of which a pair of good and hone

ams. I'll get 'em. Oh, I'll GET 'em," saidMac, as if reassuring some doubting

Bevan remained outsidein the street surveyi

m very noisy, very

today,for normally he was fond of children. Indeed, normally he was fondof most things. He was a good-natured and cheerful young

discontent due to the highly developed condition of hissoul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two. Or it might havebeen the reaction from th

ed, rowdy supper party where a number oftired people with over-strained nerves had seemed to feel it a dutyto be artificially vivacious. It had lasted t

reap

s in his pocket. A cat, on its way back fromlunch, pau

as alwayscourteous to cats, but today he went throug

on. Mac became

llery. 'Ighly critical they are always. Specially if it's anAmerican piece like this one. If they don't like it, they precioussoon let you know. My missus ses they was all speakin' very 'ighlyof it. My missus says she ain't seen a livelier show for a longtime, and she's a grea

distance one caught thegenial personality of the new arrival. It seemed to go before herlike a heartening breeze. She picked her way carefully through thechildren crawling on the side walk. She

e stood brooding on the mortality of tomatoes. And, thoughhe replied "Rot

teady blue eyes. The latter were frequently employed by her inquelling admirers who were encouraged by the former to become tooardent. Billie's views on the opposite sex who forgot themselveswere as rigid as those of Lord Marshmoreton concerning thrips. Sheli

tafternoon?""Limp and pessimistic.""That comes of sitting up till four in the morning with festivehams.""You were up as late as I was, and you look like Little Eva after anight of sweet, childish slumber.""Yes, but I drank ginger ale, and didn't smoke eighteen cigars. Andyet, I don't kno

ose with whomhis profession brought him in contact, "how flat it all was. Theshow business I mean, and these darned fir

untry, Billie.""Me? I wrote the words and music. Didn't you know I was a countrykid? My dad ran a Bide a Wee Home for flowers, and I used to knowthem all by their middle names. He was a nursery gardener out inIndiana. I tell you, when I see a rose nowadays, I shake its handand say: 'Well, well, Cyril, how's everything with you? And how areJoe and Jack and Jimmy and all the rest of the boys at home?' Doyou know how I used to put in my time the first few nights I wasover here in London? I used to hang around Covent Garden with myhead back, sniffing.

akid. This is the first show she's been in. And I happen to know

easier. And it's no good talking to her;she thinks he's wonderful. That's another kick I have against theshow business. It seems to make girls such darned

half of these are mash notes. I gotthree between the first and second acts last night. Why thenobility and gentry of this burg should think that I'm theiraffinity just because I've got golden hair--which is perfectly

ge pondered. He was certainly feeling better since he

. It ran over a year in New York, and there are three companiesof it out now.""That's 'ow it is, you see. You've gone and got blarzy. Too big a'elping of success, you've 'ad." Mac wagged

or you to read in you

hat there areothers. What were you saying about being married?""Mr. Bevan and I was 'aving a talk about 'im bei

y soon gets sick of pullingoff good things, if you ain't got nobody to pat you on the back fordoing of it. Why, when I was single, if I got 'old of a sure thingfor the three o'clock race and picked up a couple of quid, thethrill of it didn't seem to linger somehow. But no

d 'aving a nice little 'ome of your own to go back to atnight.""Mac," said Billie admiringly, "you talk like a Tin Pan Alley song

ndelssohn's March Daughters right away. Are you going,George? There's a rehearsal at two-thirty for cuts.""I want to get the evening pape

just after 'avin' a big success like this'ere. Comes of bein' a artist, I suppose."Miss Do

makes is sinful, Mac. He wearsthousand dollar bills next to his skin winter and summer. But he'sjust the same as he was when I first knew him, when he was justhanging around Broadway, looking out for a chance to be allowed toslip a couple of interpolated numbers into any old show that camealong. Yes. Put it in your diary, Mac, and write it on your cuff,George Bevan's all right. He's an ace."Unconscious of these eulogies, which, coming from one whosejudgment he respected, might have cheered him up, George wandereddown Shaftesbury Avenue feeling more depressed than ever. The sunhad gone in for the time being, and the east wind was frolickinground him like a

, as Mac had pointedout, he had everything to make him happy. Popular as he was inAmerica, this was the fir

he felt

ause he was lonely. Mac, that solid thinker,had been right. The solution of the problem of life was to get holdof the right girl and have a home to go back to at night. He wasmildly surprised that he had tried in any o

ry minute. Passing omnibuses creaked beneath theweight of happy couples. The very policeman across the Street hadjust grinned at a flitting shop girl, and she had smiled back athim. The only female in London

noneof his rich nature in foolish flirtations. He had just begun toweave a rose-tinted romance about their two selves, when a coldreaction set in. Even as he paused to watch the girl threading herway through the crowd, the east wind jabbed an icy finger down theback of his neck, and the chill of it sobered him. After all,

d not have believedpossible a moment befor

ion irked him. It was not, hetold hi

return for services rendered bythe casual passer-by. But the twentieth century is a prosaic age,when girls are merely girls and have no troubles at all. Were heto stop this girl in brown and assure her that his aid and

rust an early edition in his face. After all noticesare notices, even when the heart is aching. George felt in hispocket for the necessary money, fou

y one thing to bedone, return to the hotel, retrieve his money, and try to forgetthe weight of the world and its

, she would not have been more acceptable in George'ssight. And now she was going out of his life for ever. With anoverwhelming sense of pathos, for there is no pathos more bitterthan that of parting from some

eof yards, came to a standstill in a block of the traffic. "A dull

d doesn't move."At this point the door of th

breathlessly, "but would