CHAPTER V.


A LODGING BY THE RIVER

The day after his introduction to the Kenbys, Larcher went with Murray
Davenport on one of those expeditions incidental to their collaboration
as writer and illustrator. Larcher had observed an increase of the
strange indifference which had appeared through all the artist's
loquacity at their first interview. This loquacity was sometimes
repeated, but more often Davenport's way was of silence. His apathy, or
it might have been abstraction, usually wore the outer look of
dreaminess.

"Your friend seems to go about in a trance," Barry Tompkins said of him
one day, after a chance meeting in which Larcher had made the two
acquainted.

This was a near enough description of the man as he accompanied Larcher
to a part of the riverfront not far from the Brooklyn Bridge, on the
afternoon at which we have arrived. The two were walking along a squalid
street lined on one side with old brick houses containing junk-shops,
shipping offices, liquor saloons, sailors' hotels, and all the various
establishments that sea-folk use. On the other side were the wharves,
with a throng of vessels moored, and glimpses of craft on the broad
river.

"Here we are," said Larcher, who as he walked had been referring to a
pocket map of the city. The two men came to a stop, and Davenport took