A little later that was just what happened.
The ferryboat touched the pier at the foot of Cortlandt Street, and some people came on board to meet friends who were arriving by it.
Hanson recognized a few of his acquaintances among them, but, fortunately, they all seemed too much engaged in searching out and welcoming friends whom they had come to meet, to take any notice of him.
Carrying the child in his arms, Hanson left the boat with the crowd and stood in the midst of another crowd—a vociferous crowd of hackmen and hotel drummers.
Holding the child in one arm, with her head on his shoulder, he beckoned one yelling Jehu, and the man jumped to obey.
“Bring up your carriage at once,” said the young man, and the fortunate candidate for public patronage darted off with amazing alacrity to execute the commission, leaving his patron standing there, with the sleeping child in his arms.
The hackman had scarcely disappeared when Hanson was suddenly saluted with a startling clap on the shoulder and a——
“Hello! By Jove! Where did you come from? Dropped from the skies?”
“How are you, Larkins? I’m devilish glad to see you!” exclaimed Hanson, lying as coolly as he could, under the circumstances, and extricating his right hand to offer the newcomer, a tall, young fellow, with dark hair and mustache, light, gray eyes and pug nose—making up rather a good-humored, mocking countenance, and the last man on earth Hanson would have liked to meet. “Yes, I have dropped from the skies! In other words, just returned from an infernal voyage around the Horn.”
“Around the Horn! What the deuce ever took you around the Horn?”