Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI



_The Lion and the Mouse_

CHAPTER I


There was unwonted bustle in the usually sleepy and dignified New
York offices of the Southern and Transcontinental Railroad Company
in lower Broadway. The supercilious, well-groomed clerks who, on
ordinary days, are far too preoccupied with their own personal
affairs to betray the slightest interest in anything not
immediately concerning them, now condescended to bestir themselves
and, gathered in little groups, conversed in subdued, eager tones.
The slim, nervous fingers of half a dozen haughty stenographers,
representing as many different types of business femininity, were
busily rattling the keys of clicking typewriters, each of their
owners intent on reducing with all possible despatch the mass of
letters which lay piled up in front of her. Through the heavy
plate-glass swinging doors, leading to the elevators and thence to
the street, came and went an army of messengers and telegraph
boys, noisy and insolent.

Through the open windows the hoarse shouting of news-venders, the
rushing of elevated trains, the clanging of street cars, with the
occasional feverish dash of an ambulance--all these familiar