"But vere can I find you?"

"I will find myself, thank you," and he strode
out into the rain.




Chapter II



In the days when Otto Kling's shop-windows attracted
collectors in search of curios and battered furniture,
"The Avenue," as its denizens always called
Fourth Avenue between Madison Square Garden and
the tunnel, was a little city in itself.

Almost all the needs of a greater one could be supplied
by the stores fronting its sidewalks. If tea, coffee,
sugar, and similar stimulating and soothing groceries
were wanted, old Bundleton, on the corner above
Kling's, in a white apron and paper cuffs, weighed them
out. If it were butter or eggs, milk, cream, or curds,
the Long Island Dairy--which was really old man
Heffern, his daughter Mary, and his boy Tom--had
them in a paper bag, or on your plate, or into your
pitcher before you could count your change. If it were
a sirloin, or lamb-chops, or Philadelphia chickens, or a