But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of his mistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body. The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form, overbore the poor girl’s pride and reserve; she made no attempt to remember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms about the neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:-- “And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!” The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining the automobile: “Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need.” The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stooping among the mechanical entrails, dexterously produced money, and advanced with the selected bill held out politely in his hand, while the glass eyes and the masks peered down at the performance. Eliza La Heu had perceived none of this, for she was intent upon General; nor had John Mayrant, who had approached her with the purpose of coming to her aid. But when Charley, quite at hand, began to speak words which were instantly obliterated from my memory by what happened, the young girl realized his intention and straightened stiffly, while John, with the rapidity of light, snatched the extended bill from Charley’s hand, and tearing it in four pieces, threw it in his face. A foreign voice cackled from the automobile: “Oh la la! il a du panache!” But Charley now disclosed himself to be a true man of the world--the financial world--by picking the pieces out of the mud; and, while he wiped them and enclosed them in his handkerchief and with perfect dignity returned them to his pocket, he remarked simply, with a shrug: “As you please.” His accent also was ever so little foreign--that New York downtown foreign, of the second generation, which stamps so, many of our bankers. The female now leaned from her seat, and with the tone of setting the whole thing right, explained: “We had no idea it was a lady.” “Doubtless you’re not accustomed to their appearance,” said John to Charley. I don’t know what Charley would have done about this; for while the completely foreign voice was delightedly whispering, “Toujours le panache!” a new, deep, and altogether different female voice exclaimed:-- “Why, John, it’s you!”