“A thousand dollars,’ he said, “means much or little. One man may buy a happy home with it and laugh at Rockefeller. Another could send his wife South with it and save her life. A thousand dollars would buy pure milk for one hundred babies during June, July, and August, and save fifty of their lives. You could count upon a half-hour’s diversion with it at faro in one of the fortified art galleries. It would furnish an education to an ambitious boy. I am told that a genuine Corot was secured for that amount in an auction room yesterday. You could move to a New Hampshire town and live respectably two years on it. You could rent Madison Square Garden for one evening with it, and lecture your audience, if you should have one, on the precariousness of the profession of heir-presumptive.”

“People might like you, Old Bryson,” said Gillian, always unruffled, “if you wouldn’t moralize.

I asked you to tell me what I could do with a thousand dollars.”

“You?” said Bryson, with a gentle laugh. “Why, Bobby Gillian, there’s only one logical thing you could do. You can go buy Miss Lotta Lauriere a diamond pendant with the money, and then take yourself off to Idaho and inflict your presence upon a ranch. I advise a sheep ranch, as I have a particular dislike for sheep.”

“Thanks,” said Gillian, rising, “I thought I could depend upon you, Old Bryson. You’ve hit on the very scheme. I wanted to chuck the money in a lump, for I’ve got to turn in an account for it, and I hate itemizing.”

Gillian phoned for a cab and said to the driver:

“The stage entrance of the Columbine Theatre.”

Miss Lotta Lauriere was assisting Nature with a powder puff, almost ready for her call at a crowded matinée, when her dresser mentioned the name of Mr. Gillian.

“Let it in,” said Miss Lauriere. “Now, what is it, Bobby? I’m going on in two minutes.”

“Rabbit-foot your right ear a little,” suggested Gillian critically. “That’s better. It won’t take two minutes for me. What do you say to a little thing in the pendant line? I can stand three ciphers with a figure one in front of ’em.”

“Oh, just as you say,” carolled Miss Lauriere. “My right glove, Adams. Say, Bobby, did you see that necklace Della Stacey had on the other night? Twenty-two hundred dollars it cost at Tiffany’s. But of course—pull my sash a little to the left, Adams.”

“Miss Lauriere for the opening chorus!” cried the call-boy without.

Gillian strolled out to where his cab was waiting.

“What would you do with a thousand dollars if you had it?” he asked the driver.

“Open a s’loon,” said the cabby promptly and huskily. “I know a place I could take money in with both hands. It’s a four-story brick on a corner. I’ve got it figured out. Second story—Chinks and chop suey; third floor—manicures and foreign missions; fourth floor—poolroom. If you was thinking of putting up the cap—”

“Oh, no,” said Gillian, “I merely asked from curiosity. I take you by the hour. Drive till I tell you to stop.”

Eight blocks down Broadway Gillian poked up the trap with his cane and got out. A blind man sat upon a stool on the sidewalk selling pencils. Gillian went out and stood before him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but would you mind telling me what you would do if you had a thousand dollars?”