“I have seen a professor from a university in Oregon, and he has given me good news of my lots in Tacoma. I have five, as I think I told you. He offered me five hundred dollars apiece cash down.”
“Don’t you take it! They’re going a good deal higher, now that the railroad is nearly completed.”
“So he told me.”
“I congratulate you on your good luck, Chester. I am sure you deserve it. But you haven’t told me why you were ‘bounced.’”
“Mr. Mullins said I wasted time in going his errands. It wasn’t true, but it was only an excuse to get rid of me. He took his cousin Felix in my place.”
The two friends went to dinner about six o’clock. At seven they came downstairs and sat in the lobby on a sofa near the door.
Through the portal there was a constant ingress and egress of men—a motley crowd—business men, politicians, professionals and men perhaps of shady character, for a great hotel cannot discriminate, and hundreds pass in and out who are not guests and have no connection with the house.
“It is a wonderful place, Chester,” said Mr. Perkins. “Everybody seems at home here. I suppose everybody—everybody, at least, who is presentable—in New York comes here sometime during the year.”
Just then Chester uttered a little exclamation of surprise. As if to emphasize Mr. Perkins’ remark, two persons came in who were very well known to the young artist. They were David Mullins and Dick Ralston.
Mullins heard the slight exclamation and turned his head in the direction of the sofa on which Chester and his friend were sitting. So did Ralston.