But Mr. Carden was already in the outer office beside the clerk who had
admitted Clarence.

"You remember that boy Brant who was here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where did he go?"

"Don't know, sir."

"Go and find him somewhere and somehow. Go to all the hotels,
restaurants, and gin-mills near here, and hunt him up. Take some one
with you, if you can't do it alone. Bring him back here, quick!"

It was nearly midnight when the clerk fruitlessly returned. It was the
fierce high noon of "steamer nights"; light flashed brilliantly from
shops, counting-houses, drinking-saloons, and gambling-hells. The
streets were yet full of eager, hurrying feet--swift of fortune,
ambition, pleasure, or crime. But from among these deeper harsher
footfalls the echo of the homeless boy's light, innocent tread seemed to
have died out forever.




CHAPTER VIII


When Clarence was once more in the busy street before the bank, it