The Little Warrior

"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It shall be attended to. And the next article?'"

"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, gray men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points! If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well, what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so constantly at Mrs Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!" Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a moment. "Thank heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.

"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the meantime?"

Uncle Chris coughed.

"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a boarding-house—true—but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its door,—which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever heard of Nervino?"

"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."

"It is a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."

"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."

"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the fierce rush of metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become devitalised? I had a friend …"

"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"