"Gin won't do as well as----" With a funny little look he slipped his hand into a rear pocket. "It's the best, Doctor." The hand came out, holding a small flask. "I can vouch for it. The best French brandy in New York." "Good!" said the doctor, with a little gleam in the eye he turned on O'Malley. "Now, Don, you go to the nearest restaurant and get----" He reeled off a list of light and delicate but nourishing edibles. "You won't need to hurry. She'll do with the egg-nog for an hour at least. So get 'em good, and take your time." "All right," said Donald, grateful for the opportunity for action. "I'll be back as quickly as I can make it. But, John----" "Yes?" "Can't we take her out of this beastly hole? Now, at once! I can't bear to think of her with that hyena of a woman--who left her to starve--to starve! God! When I think of it----" "The woman will treat her well if she's paid," said O'Malley. "I can vouch for that, at least." "Then pay her! For God's sake, pay her!" cried Donald, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket and thrusting them into O'Malley's hands. "Better leave her here, in any case, for to-night, Don," advised Doctor Stevens, quietly. "I can get her into my sanitarium to-morrow, if you'd like that." Donald nodded, eagerly. "And I'll get a nurse for her here, right away, but I think you'd better sweeten up this woman----" "This'll do it," said O'Malley, peeling off a bill of large denomination, and handing the rest of the money back to Donald. "This will do for a starter, with the hope of benefits to follow." "So go ahead, Don, and don't worry about anything here," said the doctor, comfortingly. "I'm not going to leave till I see things are right." Donald, after a grateful look at John Stevens and O'Malley, and an anxious, longing glance at the closed door, ran rapidly down the stairs. * * * * * When O'Malley reached his comfortable, old-fashioned bachelor quarters, late that night, there was an almost unacknowledged feeling of half-amused satisfaction in his mind. The situation was painful enough, to be sure, and he was full of sympathy for young Morris, but, in spite of all, there was a certain compensation in the fact that he had put one over on Pete. While he had not been exactly instrumental in finding Mary Blake, he had been on the job when she was found--and that was incontestably comforting to his sporty old heart. He was, therefore, in a somewhat mixed frame of mind as he undressed, but above all other considerations one thought was uppermost: "I'll have news for you, Pete, my lad, when you get back from your wild-goose chase," he said to himself, as he stooped, ponderously, to untie his shoes. And just then the telephone, which was installed in the corner of his bedroom, rang out loudly in the midnight stillness.