returned, bowed, and retired again, the tears streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner Archie could see his brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with a display of manly emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.
'Thirty years ago last October,' said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking voice, 'I--'
Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
'I'll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I'll fire--' He turned on Archie. 'What the devil do you mean by it, you--you--'
'Thirty years ago,' said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his napkin, 'I left me dear old home in the old country--'
'MY hotel a bear-garden!'
'Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion--'
'Thirty years ago last October! 'Twas a fine autumn evening the finest ye'd ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to see me off.'
Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly's old mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to go off.
''Ye'll always be a good boy, Aloysius?' she said to me,' said Mr. Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. 'And I said: 'Yes, Mother, I will!'' Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again. ''Twas a liar I was!' he observed, remorsefully. 'Many's the dirty I've played since then. 'It's a long way back to Mother's knee.' 'Tis a true word!' He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. 'Dan, there's a deal of trouble in this world without me going out of me way to make more. The strike is over! I'll send the men back tomorrow! There's me hand on it!'
Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the situation and was about to express them with the generous strength which was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked himself abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy, wondering if he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back into Mr. Brewster's heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away from home hunting for a day or two.
'You'll what!'
'I'll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me, Dan! It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old mother- -'
Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly's dear old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.
''Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as if 'twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I, out comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a screech the way ye'd hear it ten miles away. 'Twas thirty years ago- -'
Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it had ever been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he could see his father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on the shoulder.
Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of 'Mother's Knee.' It was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he had ever heard. There was, in Mr. Blumenthal's opinion, nothing to stop this thing selling a million copies.
Archie smoked contentedly.
'Not a bad evening's work, old thing,' he said. 'Talk about birds with one stone!' He looked at Lucille reproachfully. 'You don't seem bubbling over with joy.'
'Oh, I am, precious!' Lucille sighed. 'I was only thinking about Bill.'
'What about Bill?'
'Well, it's rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that steam-siren.'
'Oh, we mustn't look on the jolly old dark side. Perhaps--Hallo, Bill, old top! We were just talking about you.'
'Were you?' said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.
'I take it that you want congratulations, what?'
'I want sympathy!'
'Sympathy?'
'Sympathy! And lots of it! She's gone!'
'Gone! Who?'
'Spectatia!'
'How do you mean, gone?'
Bill glowered at the tablecloth.
'Gone home. I've just seen her off in a cab. She's gone back to Washington Square to pack. She's catching the ten o'clock train back to Snake Bite. It was that damned song!' muttered Bill, in a stricken voice. 'She says she never realised before she sang it to- night how hollow New York was. She said it suddenly came over her. She says she's going to give up her career and go back to her mother. What the deuce are you twiddling your fingers for?' he broke off, irritably.
'Sorry, old man. I was just counting.'
'Counting? Counting what?'
'Birds, old thing. Only birds!' said Archie.
