“Well, I must really go. I have no doubt you have important business, so that you will be glad to get rid of me.”
“I confess that I am quite busy this morning. Call again, however, when you have an opportunity.”
Meanwhile Ben went down-stairs, more and more mystified. He thought Mrs. Harcourt a very mysterious character.
She had treated him handsomely, however. He had on an elegant suit and a ten-dollar bill in his pocket. His life seemed to be entirely changed.
In the morning he had been a Bowery newsboy; now he was boarding at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. That reminded him that he must give notice to his landlady that he would not sleep in his room at present.
“But how long will this last?” he asked himself.
If only a week he might as well keep the room, as the price was so small, and he was in funds. Having no urgent business, he decided to walk up Broadway.
He sauntered along, looking in at shop windows, and experienced the pleasure of feeling that for the present, at least, he need feel no pecuniary anxieties.
About the corner of Bleecker Street he came near running into his friend, the eminent novelist, Mr. Sylvanus Snodgrass.
“How are you, Mr. Snodgrass?” he said.