The Fortune Hunter | Page 5

up to an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of
landladies a "top hall back"--a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts
of the hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered
with reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed"
as is peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it
was to cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the
gas-bracket (with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as
she skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days and
joyless nights must set his face....
Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue
ere turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had
established in the roaring Forties, just the other side of the
Avenue--Fifth Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was
held up for a time by a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently,
waiting for the mounted policeman to clear a way across, watching the
while with lack-lustre eyes the interminable procession of cabs and

landaus, taxis and town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the
street from curb to curb.
The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the
parade with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
been--upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he
had once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby
and tired. He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had
thought him worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart
and--had been successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes,
apparently, with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and
through and beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned
impregnably above the envious herd.
He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear--you musn't;
you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate cup.
In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
quarters, buoyed by a single hope--that Kellogg might be out of town
or delayed at his office.
In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily
the interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand.
Kellogg could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk!
with all the sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth

and self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction
singular to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that
Kellogg could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with
a sour grin: "That means me..."
The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance--a stupefied Robbins,
thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and guest.
"Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
but--but it can't be you!"
"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
you back."
"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom,
Robbins following.
"It was only yesterday I posted a letter