The Adventures of Sally | Page 2

cautiously in small sums so as not to spoil
the market. And so solid, it seemed, was Mr. Tuke's reputation with
those in the inner circle of knowledge that the mild young man was
confident that, if you went about the matter cannily and without
precipitation, three to one might be obtained. It seemed to Sally that the
time had come to correct certain misapprehensions.
"I don't know where you get your figures," she said, "but I'm afraid
they're wrong. I've just twenty-five thousand dollars."
The statement had a chilling effect. To these jugglers with half-millions
the amount mentioned seemed for the moment almost too small to
bother about. It was the sort of sum which they had been mentally
setting aside for the heiress's car fare. Then they managed to adjust
their minds to it. After all, one could do something even with a pittance
like twenty-five thousand.
"If I'd twenty-five thousand," said Augustus Bartlett, the first to rally
from the shock, "I'd buy Amalgamated..."
"If I had twenty-five thousand..." began Elsa Doland.
"If I'd had twenty-five thousand in the year nineteen hundred,"
observed a gloomy-looking man with spectacles, "I could have started a
revolution in Paraguay."

He brooded sombrely on what might have been.
"Well, I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do," said Sally. "I'm going
to start with a trip to Europe... France, specially. I've heard France well
spoken of--as soon as I can get my passport; and after I've loafed there
for a few weeks, I'm coming back to look about and find some nice
cosy little business which will let me put money into it and keep me in
luxury. Are there any complaints?"
"Even a couple of thousand on Benny Whistler..." said the mild young
man.
"I don't want your Benny Whistler," said Sally. "I wouldn't have him if
you gave him to me. If I want to lose money, I'll go to Monte Carlo and
do it properly."
"Monte Carlo," said the gloomy man, brightening up at the magic name.
"I was in Monte Carlo in the year '97, and if I'd had another fifty
dollars... just fifty... I'd have..."
At the far end of the table there was a stir, a cough, and the grating of a
chair on the floor; and slowly, with that easy grace which actors of the
old school learned in the days when acting was acting, Mr. Maxwell
Faucitt, the boarding-house's oldest inhabitant, rose to his feet.
"Ladies," said Mr. Faucitt, bowing courteously, "and..." ceasing to bow
and casting from beneath his white and venerable eyebrows a quelling
glance at certain male members of the boarding-house's younger set
who were showing a disposition towards restiveness, "... gentlemen. I
feel that I cannot allow this occasion to pass without saying a few
words."
His audience did not seem surprised. It was possible that life, always
prolific of incident in a great city like New York, might some day
produce an occasion which Mr. Faucitt would feel that he could allow
to pass without saying a few words; but nothing of the sort had
happened as yet, and they had given up hope. Right from the start of
the meal they had felt that it would be optimism run mad to expect the

old gentleman to abstain from speech on the night of Sally Nicholas'
farewell dinner party; and partly because they had braced themselves to
it, but principally because Miss Nicholas' hospitality had left them with
a genial feeling of repletion, they settled themselves to listen with
something resembling equanimity. A movement on the part of the
Marvellous Murphys--new arrivals, who had been playing the
Bushwick with their equilibristic act during the preceding week--to
form a party of the extreme left and heckle the speaker, broke down
under a cold look from their hostess. Brief though their acquaintance
had been, both of these lissom young gentlemen admired Sally
immensely.
And it should be set on record that this admiration of theirs was not
misplaced. He would have been hard to please who had not been
attracted by Sally. She was a small, trim, wisp of a girl with the tiniest
hands and feet, the friendliest of smiles, and a dimple that came and
went in the curve of her rounded chin. Her eyes, which disappeared
when she laughed, which was often, were a bright hazel; her hair a soft
mass of brown. She had, moreover, a manner, an air of distinction
lacking in the majority of Mrs. Meecher's guests. And she carried youth
like a banner. In approving of Sally, the Marvellous Murphys had been
guilty of no lapse from their high critical standard.
"I have been asked," proceeded Mr. Faucitt, "though I am aware that
there are others here far worthier of such a task--Brutuses compared
with