“Sounds like you had your wallet lifted, poor thing,” said the man.

Now Vera was sure her wallet was gone. Irrevocably gone. “My God,” she wailed, “all my identification. My receipts from this trip. My…”

Vera Bundle sat against the back of her seat and wept.

The man patted the top of Vera’s clasped hands but said nothing.

The waitress came over and spoke to Vera. “What happened, dearie?”

“Had her wallet stolen,” said the man.

“Oh, my,” said the waitress, frowning, obviously distressed, her chin resting in the palm of her right hand, her left hand propping up her right elbow.

“What am I going to do?” moaned Vera, rocking from side to side, putting her hands to the sides of her face. “I can’t get back to my hotel. I can’t pay for a cab. With all that snow out there, there isn’t even a cab to pay for. I won’t be able to pay my hotel bill. Oh, my God, what am I going to do?”

“Ma’am,” said the waitress, “maybe I can ask if they have a room here for you.”

“What’ll I use for money?” snapped Vera, surprisingly cross. “Don’t you understand? I’ve had my wallet stolen!”

The waitress shrugged. “Only trying to help,” she said, and walked away.

“May I ask your name?” said the man.

“Vera Bundle,” she answered, distracted, sorry she yelled at the waitress.

The man withdrew a black alligator billfold from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He slid out some money and handed the bills to Vera. “Please, Vera, take this.”

Thunderstruck, Vera said, “I can’t…you can’t…you can’t do this. I can’t take your money. I can’t. I don’t even know who you are or where you live. I wouldn’t be able to…to pay you back.”

As Vera spoke, she looked at the money in her hand. It was all hundred-dollar bills! Six of them! The man had given her six hundred dollars!

“If you need more, tell me,” said the man, writing his name and address with a gold ballpoint Cross pen on a piece of paper he had taken from a matching black alligator pocket secretary. “You’ll pay me back. I’m not worried. Here’s my address.”

“Oh dear,” was all Vera could say. She read the man’s name engraved at the top of the piece of paper. JOHN J. SUGHRUE. She also noticed that the kind man lived in a town called Greenwich, in Connecticut.

“Listen,” said the man named Sughrue, “it looks like it’s going to be a disappointing night for me too, so the least I can do to make me feel better is make you feel better.”

“What a sweet thing to say,” said Vera. “Why is it going to be a disappointing night for you?”