"I dare say she has gone home with one of the girls from the Bureau," I
said, reassuringly.
I had been studying the young man's face in the meantime, and had
decided that Mr. Dockett was a very good sort of a fellow. There was
good material in him. It might be in a raw state, but it was very good
material, indeed. He might be a butcher by trade, but surely he was
the "mildest-mannered man" that ever felled an ox. His voice had a
pleasant, sincere ring, and altogether he looked like a man with whom
it might be dangerous to trifle, but who might be trusted to handle a
sick baby, or wait upon a helpless woman with unlimited devotion.
"You don't have no idea who the girl might be?" he asked, gazing
dejectedly into the crown of his hat. "'Tain't so late. I might find
Phenie yit."
It happened, by the merest chance, that I did know where Nettie Mullin,
in whose company I feared Phenie might again be found, boarded. That
is to say, I knew the house but not its number, and standing as it did
at a point where several streets and avenues intersect, its situation
was one not easily imparted to another. I saw, by the look of hopeless
bewilderment on Mr. Dockett's face, that he could have discovered the
North-west Passage with equal facility.