"Why," says I, "you miserable example of Divine carelessness, do you know what that 'old woman' mother has done for you, you drivelin' idiot, a-thankin' God that you're alive and forgetting the very mother that bore you; if you could see the tears that she has shed, if you could count the sleepless nights that she has put in, the heartaches, the pain, the privation that she has humbly, silently, even thankfully borne that you might simply live, you'd squander your last cent and your last breath to make her life a joy, from this day until her light goes out. A man that don't respect his mother is lost to all decency; a man who will hear her name belittled is a Judas, and a man who will call his mother 'old woman' is a no-good, low-down, misbehaven whelp. Why, damn it, I'd fight a buzz-saw, if it called my mother 'old woman'--and she's been dead a long time; gone to that special, exalted, gilt-edged and glorious heaven for mothers. No one but mothers have a right to expect to go to a heaven, and the only question that'll be asked is, 'Have you been a mother?' "Well, sir, I had forgot about the women, but they clapped their hands and I looked around, and there were tears in the eyes of that one woman. "She got up; came to our table and laid a card by my plate, and said, 'I beg your pardon; but won't you call on me? Please do.' "I was completely knocked out, but told her I would, and she went out alone; the others finished their breakfast. "She had no sooner gone than Cy Nash, my conductor, commenced to giggle--'Made a mash on the flyest woman in town,' he tittered; 'ain't a blood in town but what would give his head for your boots, old man; that's Mabel Verne--owns the Odeon dance hall, and the Tontine, in Carson.' "I glanced at the card, and it did read. 'Mabel Verne, 21 Flood avenue.' "Well, Flood avenue is no slouch of a street, the best folks live there," I answered. "'Yes, that's her private residence, and if you go there and are let in, you'd be the first man ever seen around there. She's a curious critter, never rides or drives, or shows herself off at all; but you bet she sees that the rest of the stock show off. She's in it for money, I tell you.' "I don't know why, but it made me kind of heart-sick to think of the hell that woman must be in, for I knew by her looks that she had a heart and a brain, and that neither of them was in the Odeon or the Tontine dance-houses. "I thought the matter over,--and didn't go to see her. The next trip, she sent a carriage for me. "She met me at the door, and took my hat, and as I dropped into an easy chair, I opened the ball to the effect that 'this here was a strange proceeding for a lady.'