The Morning Coat of Mr. Hudson B. Riggs

What Mr. Riggs did not know was that a young man in uninteresting blue,
who looked like a good tennis-player, was watching him. It wasn't
because he detected a fellow soul in purgatory but because he always was
obsequious outside of his office that Mr. Riggs bowed so profusely that
he almost lost his tea-cup, when the young man in blue drifted to him
and suggested, "I hear you're in the Alaskan mining-game, Mr. Riggs."

"Oh yes."

"Do you get up there much now?"

"No, not much."

"I hope to hit Alaska some day--I'm taking engineering at the U."

"Do you? Straight?" Mr. Riggs violently set his cup down on a
table--Mrs. Riggs would later tell him that he'd put it down in the
wrong place, but never mind. He leaned over Milt and snarled, "Offer me
a cigarette. I don't know if they smoke here, and I dassn't be the first
to try. Say, boy, Alaska---- I wish I was there now! Say, it beats all
hell how good tea can taste in a tin cup, and how wishy-washy it is in
china. Boy, I don't know anything about you, but you look all right, and
when you get ready to go to Alaska, you come to me, and I'll see if I
can't give you a chance to go up there. But don't ever come back!"

When the crowd began bubblingly to move toward the door, Milt prepared
to move--and bubble--with them. Though Claire's note had sounded as
though she was really a little lonely, at the tea she had said nothing
to him except, "So glad you came. Do you know Dolly Ransome? Dolly, this
is my nice Mr. Daggett. Take him and make him happy."