become, until he'll catch the fever and go cantering about with that one fixed idea in his head. And," added Kerns softly, "no New Yorker in his right mind can go galloping through these five boroughs very long before he's roped, tied, and marked by the 'only girl in the world'--the _only_ girl--if you don't care to turn around and look at another million girls precisely like her. O Lord!--precisely like her!"

Here was a nice exhorter to incite others to matrimony.

CHAPTER II

Meanwhile, Gatewood was walking along Fifth Avenue, more or less soothed by the May sunshine. First, he went to his hatters, looked at straw hats, didn't like them, protested, and bought one, wishing he had strength of mind enough to wear it home. But he hadn't. Then he entered the huge white marble palace of his jeweler, left his watch to be regulated, caught a glimpse of a girl whose hair and neck resembled the hair and neck of his ideal, sidled around until he discovered that she was chewing gum, and backed off, with a bitter smile, into the avenue once more.

Every day for years he had had glimpses of girls whose hair, hands, figures, eyes, hats, carriage, resembled the features required by his ideal; there always was something wrong somewhere. And, as he strolled moodily, a curious feeling of despair seized him--something that, even in his most sentimental moments, even amid the most unexpected disappointment, he had never before experienced.

"I do want to love _somebody_!" he found himself saying half aloud; "I want to marry; I--" He turned to look after three pretty children with their maids--"I want several like those--several!--seven--ten--I don't care how many! I want a house to worry me, just as Tommy described it; I want to see the same girl across the breakfast table--or she can sip her cocoa in bed if she desires--" A slow, modest blush stole over his features; it was one of the nicest things he ever did. Glancing up, he beheld across the way a white sign, ornamented with strenuous crimson lettering:                        KEEN & CO.
                  TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS

The moment he discovered it, he realized he had been covertly hunting for it; he also realized that he was going to climb the stairs. He hadn't quite decided what he meant to do after that; nor was his mind clear on the matter when he found himself opening a door of opaque glass on which was printed in red:                        KEEN & CO.

He was neither 

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