BOOK I.

UNDER THE ARCH.






CHAPTER I.

THE DANUBE PICTURE.





There was no air of uncertainty upon the handsome countenance of
Mr. Randall Clayton as he stepped out of the elevator of a sedate
Fourteenth Street business building and approvingly sniffed the
April morning breeze.

On this particular Saturday of ninety-seven, the shopping multitude
was already pouring from the Scylla of Simpson, Crawford & Simpson's
on Sixth Avenue--and its Charybdis of the Big Store--past the
jungles of Altman's, Ehrich's and O'Neill's--to dash feebly upon
the buttressed corner of Macy's, and then die away in refluent,
diverted waves, lost in the fastnesses of McCreery's and Wanamaker's,
far down Broadway.