You could count upon a half hour's
diversion with it at faro in one of the fortified art galleries.
It would furnish an education to an ambitious boy. I am told
that a genuine Corot was secured for that amount in an auction
room yesterday. You could move to a New Hampshire town and live
respectably two years on it. You could rent Madison Square Garden for
one evening with it, and lecture your audience, if you should have
one, on the precariousness of the profession of heir presumptive."
"People might like you, Old Bryson," said Gillian, always unruffled,
"if you wouldn't moralize. I asked you to tell me what I could do
with a thousand dollars."
"You?" said Bryson, with a gentle laugh. "Why, Bobby Gillian, there's
only one logical thing you could do. You can go buy Miss Lotta
Lauriere a diamond pendant with the money, and then take yourself off
to Idaho and inflict your presence upon a ranch. I advise a sheep
ranch, as I have a particular dislike for sheep."
"Thanks," said Gillian, rising, "I thought I could depend upon you,
Old Bryson. You've hit on the very scheme. I wanted to chuck the
money in a lump, for I've got to turn in an account for it, and I
hate itemizing."
Gillian phoned for a cab and said to the driver:
"The stage entrance of the Columbine Theatre."
Miss Lotta Lauriere was assisting nature with a powder puff, almost
ready for her call at a crowded matinee, when her dresser mentioned
the name of Mr.
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