Jimmy promised, almost with eagerness. It was a rare event in his life to be going out anywhere in a friendly way; and he needed greatly just then to find someone to whom to talk--someone to tell of his great success and all that the future was to hold for him. He found himself wondering, as he sat in the theatre, why he had not thought of Alice before--why he had not known instinctively that she must have grown into this flower-like creature--this rare and delicate beauty. He was to see her to-night; he would have a chance of telling her a great deal about himself and his work. He had been foolish to lose sight for so long of such a girl as this; he remembered what good friends they had been in far-off childish days. More than that, he considered with gratification that they must regard him as something rare in the world of young men; this boy who had been started in a warehouse, and now had blossomed into an important man. He felt glad that they had come to find him at the theatre. Escaping at last from the theatre, and from what now amounted almost to the reproaches of Mr. Bennett Godsby, Jimmy hastened to his room, and put on his rarely used dress suit. From a financial point of view, things were very, very wrong with Jimmy; it was only by persistently pointing out the flattering paragraphs in the newspapers that he had been able to convince his landlady that if only she waited for a week or two he would be able to pay all that was due. He had tried her with a photograph of himself, reproduced in an evening newspaper; but it seemed that she had once had a nephew "in trouble," as she expressed it, and his portrait had appeared in much the same fashion; she was distrustful. Jimmy walked, because he could not afford a cab, and because also the night was fine. And as he walked, there passed him, going along the road, an omnibus, and on the side of the omnibus, standing out clearly and distinctly, the name of the theatre and the name of his play; it was there for all London to read. He wondered what people would have thought, had they known who he was, and what the names on the sides of the 'buses (for there were others going on other routes) meant to him. Though he walked with but a shilling or two in his pocket that night, he felt once again as he had felt before--that he envied no man, and that the world was very pleasant, and that the world smiled upon him. For he was young, and he was talked about; and he had done something already in the world. And a pretty girl had held his hand that day, and had said that she was proud of him; and he was on his way now to see her. What more, in the name of Fortune, need any man ask? CHAPTER IX THE DAWN