"Oh, at his office?" said the visitors. "And when will he be at home?"

"Well, sah, when he goes out dis way in de mo'ning, he ain't
liable to come home all day."

This was discouraging; but the address of Mr. Westgate's
office was freely imparted by the intelligent black
and was taken down by Percy Beaumont in his pocketbook.
The two gentlemen then returned, languidly, to their hotel,
and sent for a hackney coach, and in this commodious vehicle
they rolled comfortably downtown. They measured the whole
length of Broadway again and found it a path of fire; and then,
deflecting to the left, they were deposited by their conductor
before a fresh, light, ornamental structure, ten stories high,
in a street crowded with keen-faced, light-limbed young men,
who were running about very quickly and stopping each other eagerly
at corners and in doorways. Passing into this brilliant building,
they were introduced by one of the keen-faced young men--
he was a charming fellow, in wonderful cream-colored garments
and a hat with a blue ribbon, who had evidently perceived them
to be aliens and helpless--to a very snug hydraulic elevator,
in which they took their place with many other persons,
and which, shooting upward in its vertical socket,
presently projected them into the seventh horizontal compartment
of the edifice. Here, after brief delay, they found themselves
face to face with the friend of their friend in London.
His office was composed of several different rooms, and they
waited very silently in one of them after they had sent in
their letter and their cards. The letter was not one which it
would take Mr. Westgate very long to read, but he came out