I looked it over--thought probably it was something pretty important, belongin' to a busy man like him." He affected to search his pockets.

"What DID I do with it, now?
Oh yes! Seems to me like I remember leavin' it down at the office--in the waste-basket." "Good place for it," Bibbs murmured, still red.
Sheridan gave him a grin.

"Perhaps pretty soon you'll be gettin' up early enough to find things before I do!" It was a threat, and Bibbs repeated the substance of it, later in the evening, to Mary Vertrees--they had come to know each other that well.
"My time's here at last," he said, as they sat together in the melancholy gas-light of the room which had been denuded of its piano.
That removal had left an emptiness so distressing to Mr.and Mrs.
Vertrees that neither of them had crossed the threshold since the dark day; but the gas-light, though from a single jet, shed no melancholy upon Bibbs, nor could any room seem bare that knew the glowing presence of Mary.

He spoke lightly, not sadly.
"Yes, it's come.

I've shirked and put off, but I can't shirk and put off any longer.