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 noises of a great city had the far-
away sound peculiar to top floors of the modern sky-scraper. The
day was warm and sticky, as is not uncommon in early May, and the
overcast sky and a distant rumbling of thunder promised rain
before night.

The big express elevators, running smoothly and swiftly, unloaded
every few moments a number of prosperous-looking men who, chatting