Dear Old Man: You said last fall that you wished I’d put you in the way of knowing one of the poor fellows I constantly meet in the work of our society. I’m just now a good deal interested in a young fellow--Robert Drake by name--whose plight appeals to me particularly. He is the black sheep of a fine family I know slightly in New England. Drink was his undoing, and after an ugly scrape in college he went down fast--_facilis descensus_; the familiar story. The doors at home were closed to him, and after a year or two he fell in with one of the worst gangs of yeggs in the country. He was sent up for cracking a safe in a Southern Illinois post office. The agent of our society at Leavenworth has had an eye on him; when he was discharged he came straight to me and I took him into my house until we could plan something for him. I appealed to his family and they’ve sent me money for his use. He wants to go to the Argentine Republic--thinks he can make a clean start down there. But there are difficulties. Unfortunately there’s just now an epidemic of yegging in the Middle West and all suspects are being gathered in. Of course Drake isn’t safe, having just done time for a similar offense. I’ve arranged with Saxby--Big Billy, the football half-back--you remember him--to ship Drake south on one of the Southern Cross steamers. Saxby is, as you know, manager of the company at New Orleans. I wanted to send Drake down direct--but here’s the rub: there’s a girl in Indianapolis he wants to marry and take along with him. He got acquainted with her in the underworld, and her people, he confesses, are a shady lot. He insists that she is straight, and it’s for her he wants to take a fresh grip and begin over again. So tomorrow--that’s January twenty-third--he will be at her house in your city, 787 Vevay Street; and he means to marry her. It’s better for him not to look you up; and will you, as the good fellow you are, go to see him and give him cash for the draft for five hundred dollars I’m inclosing? Another five hundred--all this from his father--I’m sending to Saxby to give him in gold aboard the steamer. Drake believes that in a new country, with the girl to help him, he can make good. Hoping this isn’t taking advantage of an old and valued friendship, I am always, dear old man-- Burgess put the letter in his pocket, signed his mail, entertained in the directors’ room a committee of the Civic League, subscribed a thousand dollars to a hospital, said yes or no to a number of propositions, and then his wife called him on the telephone, with an intimation that their regular dinner hour was seven. She reminded him of this almost daily, as Burgess sometimes forgot to tell her when he was to dine downtown. “Anybody for dinner tonight?”