The Midnight Passenger : A Novel

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
By RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE
I. The Danube Picture II. Tidings of Great Joy III. In Magdal's Pharmacy IV. Under the Shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge V. Breakers Ahead! Checkmate! Mr. Arthur Ferris Works in the Dark
VI. Dreaming by the Sea VII. This May Be My Last Bank Deposit VIII. The Strange Tug's Voyage IX. The Lightning Stroke of Fate X. A Cruel Legacy
XI. The Girl Bride's Rebellion XII. The Lonely Pursuer XIII. On the Yacht Rambler XIV. Irma Gluyas XV. Miss Worthington Shares Her Secret
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.
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.