The pulses of the young man were vaguely thrilled with the coming
of spring, and so he complacently took in the never-ceasing tide
of eager women, on the street's shady side, with one comprehensive
and kindly glance.

For six long years he had cautiously studied that same sea of
always anxious faces! He well knew all the types from the disdainful
woman of fashion, the crafty daughter of sin, the vacuous country
visitor, down to the argus-eyed mere de famille, sternly resolute
in her set purpose of making three dollars take the place of five,
by some heaven-sent bargain.

Countless times he had threaded this restless multitude, with an
alert devotion to the interests of the Western Trading Company. He
was, to the ordinary lounger, but the type of the average well-groomed
New York business man.

And yet, his watchful eyes swept keenly to right and left, as he
breasted the singularly inharmonious waves of the weaker sex.

His left hand firmly gripped a Russian leather portmanteau of
substantial construction, while his right lay loosely in the pocket
of his modish spring overcoat.

To one having the gift of Asmodeus, that well-gloved right hand
would have been revealed as resting upon the handle of a heavy
revolver, and the contents of the tourist-looking portmanteau been
known as some thirty-eight thousand dollars in well-thumbed currency
and greasy checks of polyglot signatures.