York to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or
to dinner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read French. I
insist on your going to your affairs, and leaving me to mine. If you
will meet me at the Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank
you; till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a merry laugh,
"adieu!"

I knew very well that no harm could happen to her in two hours of an
autumn afternoon. I was not sorry for her _conge_, for it gave me an
opportunity to follow my own plans. I stopped at one or two
cabinet-makers, and talked with the "jours" about work, that I might
tell her with truth that I had been in search of it;--then I sedulously
began on calling upon every man I could reach named Mason. O, how often
I went through one phase or another of this colloquy:--

"Is Mr. Mason in?"

"That's my name, sir."

"Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who returned from Europe last
May?"

"Know no such person, sir."

The reader can imagine how many forms this dialogue could be repeated
in, before, as I wrought my way through a long line of dry-goods cases
to a distant counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No, madam, I
know no such person as you describe"; and from the recess Fausta emerged
and met me. Her plan for the afternoon had been the same with mine. We
laughed as we detected each other; then I told her she had had quite
enough of this, that it was time she should rest, and took her, _nolens
volens_, into the ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade her wait
there through the twilight, with my copy of Clementine, till I should
return from the police-station. If the reader has ever waited in such a
place for some one to come and attend to him, he will understand that
nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not asked for attention.

Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which there the Public had
provided for her. Then I returned, sadly enough. No tidings of Rowdy
Rob, none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or anything. Still was
my district sergeant hopeful, and, as always, respectful. But I was
hopeless this time, and I knew that the next day Fausta would be
plunging into the war with intelligence-houses and advertisements. For
the night, I was determined that she should spend it in my ideal
"respectable boarding-house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one
or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself where I would take
her. Still I t