Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/86

 She did not ask what he had done with the star. She guessed it from what she had seen, over her shoulder, as she passed out the door. And Tom did not make any guilty explanations. He had not been following her. He had been finishing his dinner when she sat down at a neighboring table, and he had stared at her only a little more than she was accustomed to being stared at by solitary diners in such circumstances.

"Who was that fellow who—who spoke to me?" he asked, as they went up-stairs.

"Oh, he's a crazy actor," she said. "I'll tell you about him later. Tell me first about yourself."

He told her, on the balcony, in the moonlight, looking out at the misted ocean—while the star was having his bruised face washed and bandaged by his valet in the bathroom of his suite.

And what he told her was one of those fairy-tales of modern American business that put to shame the inventions of fiction. Briefly, he was no longer a druggist's clerk. A moment of prophetic thought had made him a millionaire. It had occurred to him, over a bottle of extract of pepsin, that the two American passions for chewing-gum and for patent medicine might be profitably combined if you put pepsin in the gum. He had sold the idea, on a royalty basis, to a chewing-gum manufacturer. And after successfully defending himself in court from an attempt to steal his rights he was now devoting himself to his health, his leisure, physical