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“Oh, oh!” she breathed, her eyes aflame with excitement. “It is–it
is–a wheel one! Oh, sir, how glad and proud you must be–with that!”

The man sat down, though not in the wheel chair. He dropped a little
helplessly into the one his hostess had brought forward.

“Perhaps you–you’d like to try it,” he managed to stammer.

“Oh, can I? Thank you!” breathed a rapturous voice. And there, for
the next five minutes, sat the Millionaire watching a slip of a girl
wheeling herself back and forth in his chair–his chair, which he had
never before suspected of being “fine” or “wonderful” or “grand”–as
the girl declared it to be.

Shrinkingly he looked about him. Nowhere did his eyes fall upon
anything that was whole. He had almost struggled to his feet to flee
from it all when the boy’s voice arrested him.

“Ye see, it’s comin’ ’bout noon–de grub is; an’ it’s goin’ ter be all
cooked so we can begin ter eat right off. Dere, how’s dat?” he
questioned, standing away to admire the propped-up table he and his
mother were setting with a few broken dishes. “Now ain’t ye glad youse
ain’t down dere a-waitin’ fur a boat what don’t come?”

“Sure I am,” declared the man, gazing into the happy face before him,
and valiantly determining to be Mike now no matter what happened.

“An’ ain’t the table pretty!” exulted the little girl. “I found that
chiny cup with the gold on it. ‘Course it don’t hold nothin’, ’cause
the bottom’s fell out; but it looks pretty–an’ looks counts when
comp’ny’s here!”

The boy lifted his head suddenly.

“Look a-here! I’ll make it hold sumpin’,” he cried, diving his hands
into his pockets, and bringing out five coppers and a dime. “Youse
jest wait. I ‘ll get a posy up ter de square. ‘Course, we ‘d ought
ter have a posy, wid comp’ny here.”

“Hold on!” The Millionaire’s hand was in his pocket now. His fingers
were on a gold piece, and his eyes–in fancy–were on a glorious riot
of Jacqueminots that filled the little room to overflowing, and brought
a wondrous light to three pairs of unbelieving eyes–then Mike
remembered. “Here,” he said a little huskily, “let me help.” But the
fingers, when he held them out, carried only the dime that Mike might
give, not the gold piece of the Millionaire.

“Aw, g’wan,” scoffed the boy, jubilantly. “As if we’d let comp’ny pay!
Dis is our show!” And for the second time that day the Millionaire had
found something that money could not buy.

And thus it happened that the table, a little later, held a centerpiece
of flowers–four near-to-fading pinks in a bottomless, gold-banded
china cup.

It was the man who heard the honk of a motor-car in the street outside.
Instinctively he braced himself, and none too soon. There was a light
knock, then in the doorway stood the dearest girl in the world, a large
basket and a box in her hands.

“Oh, how lovely! You have the table all ready,” she exclaimed, coming
swiftly forward. “And what a fine–Billy!” she gasped, as she
dropped the box and the basket on the table.

The boy turned sharply.

“Aw! Why did n’t ye tell a feller?” he reproached the man; then to the
Girl: “Does ye know him? He said ter call him ‘Mike.'”

The man rose now. With an odd directness he looked straight into the
Girl’s startled eyes.

“Maybe Miss Carrolton don’t remember me much, as I am now,” he murmured.

The Girl flushed. The man, who knew her so well, did not need to be
told that the angry light in her eyes meant that she suspected him of
playing this masquerade for a joke, and that she did not like it. Even
the dearest girl in the world had a temper–at times.