A bowl of oatmeal is the least expensive item on the bill of fare at Gorson's. When I hear a man ordering oatmeal in a cheap eating-house, my heart aches for him. I had just the money and the intention to procure another bottle of beer and another box of cigarettes. The sum required to obtain these necessaries of life is exactly the price of a bowl of oatmeal and a steak at Gorson's. So I hastily arose to go, and on my way out I had a brief conversation with the bellicose-appearing waiter, which resulted in my unknown friend's being overwhelmed with amazement later when the waiter brought him a warm steak with his oatmeal and said that some one else had already paid his bill. I did not wait to witness this result, for the man looked one of the sort to put forth a show of indignation at being made an object of charity. An hour later I saw him walking with an air of consequence up Broadway, smoking what was probably the bit of cigar he had picked up in the restaurant. He still carried his manuscript, which was wrapped in a soiled blue paper. As I was hurrying up-town on an assignment for the newspaper, I could not observe his movements further than to see that when he reached Fourteenth Street he made for one of the benches in Union Square. It was by the size, shape, and blue cover that I recognized that manuscript two days later upon the desk of the editor of the Sunday supplementary pages of the paper, as I was submitting to that personage a “special” I had written upon the fertile theme, “Producing a Burlesque.” “May I ask what that stuff is wrapped in blue?” “Certainly. A crank in the last stages of alcoholism and mental depression brought it in yesterday. It's an idiotic jumble about Beautiful Women of History, part in prose and part in doggerel.” “Of course you'll reject it?” “Naturally. I'll ease his mind by telling him the subject lacks contemporaneousness. Have a cigarette? By the way, have you any special interest in the rubbish?” “No; I only think I've seen it before somewhere. What's the writer's name and address?” “It's to be called for. He didn't leave any address. From that fact and his appearance, I infer that he doesn't have any permanent abode. Here's his name,--Ernest Ruddle. Not half as much individuality in the name as in the man. I remember him because he had a straw hat on.”