walls of houses. How did people
ever hang clothes on lines fifty feet from the ground? Truly it was a
city of wonders.

He took out a suit of evening clothes that had been his father's. He had
found that the suit fitted him, and he and Ben had assured themselves by
reference to the pictured heroes in magazine advertisements that its cut
was nearly enough in the prevailing mode. Ewing had also found some
cards of his father's which would convey his own name to all who might
care to read it.

As he sauntered out at the dinner hour he wished that Ben could be
watching him. The Bartell house was in Ninth Street, less than a long
block from his hotel, a broad, plain-fronted, three-story house of red
brick trimmed with white marble. Caught in a little eddy from the stream
heading in Washington Square and sweeping north, it had kept an old-time
air of dignity and comfort. Ewing observed a cheering glow through the
muslin curtains at the windows as he ascended the three marble steps.
The old white door, crowned with a fanlight and retaining its brass
knocker, had suffered the indignity of an electric bell, but this was
obscurely placed at the side, and he lifted the knocker's lion head. As
no bell rang, he dropped it, and was dismayed by its metallic clamor. He
swiftly meditated flight, thinking to return for a seemlier
demonstration. But the door swung back and a person in evening dress
stood aside to bow him in.

"Ah, good evening!" exclaimed Ewing cordially. Then, embarrassed, he
felt for a card, recalling that he was in a land where, probably, one
could not be cordial to persons who opened doors.

"For Mrs. Laithe," he said, in grave tones, eying the man's bluntly cut
features with a severity meant to dispel any wrong impression. The
person received the card on a tiny silver plate, relieved him of hat and
coat with what seemed to Ewing an uncanny deftness, bowed him to the
gloom of a large apartment on the left, and vanished. An instant later
he reappeared, drew portieres aside, revealing another warmly lighted
room, and Ewing beheld a white vision of his hostess.

"I'm glad to have a word with you," she began. "Sit here. You're to meet
a friend, Ned Piersoll, who will tell you a lot of things. I telephoned
him directly I came in, and he found he could come, though he must run
when he's eaten--some affair with his mother. But he'll have found out
about you."

"I'm much obliged to you," he stammered, having caught li