n Thursday, reached New York Friday night, spent
Saturday morning at the office, and sailed that afternoon, on the
Umbria, to look after the London end of the scheme."

"That was last January. How have you been eluding your friends ever
since?"

"I was in London until two weeks ago. I came in on the Etruria this
morning; we should have landed Sunday, but we broke our shaft and had to
be towed in."

"Well, Duncan, I am glad to see you back; but you must give an account
of yourself. What did you do in London besides business?"

"During February and March I was groping about in the fog after Britons
to invest in Chicago elevators, or following the hounds in the Shires.
London in winter is the beastliest place in Christendom, and when I
could get away I was in the country."

"Yes; I know London in the winter," put in Van Vort. "Fogs and
suffocation, rain and muddy boots, slush and colds, sleet and influenza,
all combine to make a dreary mackintosh and umbrella existence, which
you can vary in-doors by shivering before fires that won't burn."

"I see you've been there," answered Duncan; "but you want to add
something about empty theatres and clubs, and say it is a city deserted
by every person who can buy, borrow, or steal a railway ticket to the
country. But for one guardian angel, I should not be here to tell this
tale."

"I can name that angel," said Van Vort; "it is Scotch whiskey."

"Right!" answered Duncan.

"I thought so. All sufferers seek the same cure; but April and May were
better, weren't they?"

"I should think so."

"Did you meet many people?"

"Plenty. I fell in with Lady Brock on the steamer, and she came in
handy. I knew some people when I was there before, and took out some
good letters; and then there is the American colony."

"Yes, the American colony," said Van Vort; "who are they?"

"Some of them are people one doesn't know at home, but the English don't
mind that, so why should we? You remember Mrs. Raynor, that pretty woman
who used to be about New York, and afterward so scandalized the prudes
by an affair with a Russian Grand Duke that no one received her when she
came home?"

"Of course; did you run across her?"

"Yes; she is in London now, the smartest of the smart; the friend of the
prince and the envy of American turf hunters. They wouldn't have her in
New York, but now they flock to her house because she is in the London
smart set, and she is clever enough to receive them an