ance us three months' salary?

"HARROW."

"Idiots!" said West. Then, looking up: "What are you waiting for, boy?"

"Me answer," replied the messenger calmly.

"Oh, you were told to bring back an answer?"

"Ya-as."

"Then give me your pencil, my infant Chesterfield." And West scribbled
on the same yellow blank:

"Checks for you on your desks Monday. Congratulations. I'll see you
through, you damfools.

"WEST."

"Here's a quarter for you," observed West, eying the messenger.

"T'anks. Gimme the note."

West glanced at the moist, fat poet; then suddenly that intuition which
is bred in men of his stamp set him thinking. And presently he
tentatively added two and two.

"Mr. Guilford," he said, "I wonder whether this note--and my answer to
it--concerns you."

The poet used his handkerchief, adjusted a pair of glasses, and blinked
at the penciled scrawl. Twice he read it; then, like the full sun
breaking through a drizzle--like the glory of a search-light dissolving
a sticky fog, _the_ smile of smiles illuminated everything: footmen,
messenger, financier.

"Thank you," he said thickly; "thank you for your thought. Thought is
but a trifle to bestow--a little thing in itself. But it is the little
things that are most important--the smaller the thing the more vital its
importance, until"--he added in a genuine burst of his old
eloquence--"the thing becomes so small that it isn't anything at all,
and then the value of nothing becomes so enormous that it is past all
computation. That is a very precious thought! Thank you for it; thank
you for understanding. Bless you!"

Exuding a rich sweetness from every feature the poet moved toward the
door at a slow fleshy waddle, head wagging, small eyes half closed,
thumbing the atmosphere, while his lips moved in wordless
self-communion: "The attainment of nothing at all--that is rarest, the
most precious, the most priceless of triumphs--very, very precious.
So"--and his glance was sideways and nimbly intelligent--"so if nothing
at all is of such inestimable value, those two young pups can live on
their expectations--_quod erat demonstrandum_."

He shuddered and looked up at the facade of the gorgeous house which he
had just quitted.

"So many sunny windows to sit in--to dream in. I--I should have found it
agreeable. Pups!"

Crawling into his cab he sank into a pulpy mound, partially closing his
eyes. And upon his pursed-up lips, unuttered yet imminent, a wor