“But it’s perfectly good, isn’t it?” inquired the clerk. “If you want another instead——” 

“Oh, no,” laughed Orme. “The banks would take it.” 

“But, sir——” began the clerk. 

“I should like to keep it. If I can’t get rid of it, I’ll bring it back. It’s a hoax or an endless chain device or something of the sort. I’d like to find out.” 

He looked again at the writing. Puzzles and problems always interested him, especially if they seemed to involve some human story. 

“Very well,” said the clerk, “I’ll remember 10 that you have it, Mr.——” he peered at the name he had set down—“Mr. Orme.” 

10

Leaving the hatter’s, Orme turned back on State Street, retracing his steps. It was close to the dinner hour, and the character of the street crowds had changed. The shoppers had disappeared. Suburbanites were by this time aboard their trains and homeward bound. The street was thronged with hurrying clerks and shop-girls, and the cars were jammed with thousands more, all of them thinking, no doubt, of the same two things—something to eat and relaxation. 

What a hive it was, this great street! And how scant the lives of the great majority! Working, eating, sleeping, marrying and given in marriage, bearing children and dying—was that all? “But growing, too,” said Orme to himself. “Growing, too.” Would this be the sum of his own life—that of a worker in the hive? It came to him with something of an inner pang that thus far his scheme of things had included little more. He wondered why he was now recognizing this scantiness, this lack in his life. 

He came out of his revery to find himself again at the Madison Street corner. Again he seemed 11 to see that beautiful girl in the car, and to hear the music of her voice. 

11

How could he best set about to find her? She might be, like himself, a visitor in the city. But there was the touring-car. Well, she might have run in from one of the suburbs. He could think of no better plan than to call that evening on the Wallinghams and describe the unknown to Bessie and try to get her assistance. Bessie would divine the situation, and she would guy him unmercifully, he knew; but he would face even that for another glimpse of the girl of the car. 

And at that moment he was startled by a sharp explosion. He 

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