“The brunette.”
After dinner several young gentlemen remained in the corridors to see them pass, and some four eastern tourists who were dining at the next table, made a pretext of drinking more wine, to remain looking at the southern beauties. One of them especially looked at Mercedes so persistently that Clarence began to feel angry, and when they arose from the table he looked at the admirer with a bold stare of defiant reproval. But that in no way checked the admiration of the New Yorker, and he followed as near to Mercedes as he could, and when he saw her disappear into her parlor, he looked at the number on the door and went straight to the office to make all the enquiries he could concerning those two beautiful ladies. The clerk gave all the information he could, and added laughing:
“I have had to answer those questions a dozen times already.”
Immediately after dinner a waiter came from the office and handed to Clarence a card, with “Fred Haverly” written on it.
“Say to the gentleman I shall be down immediately,” Clarence said to the servant; and then to George, “This is the expert I want to send to Arizona. It is lucky for me to find him in town.”
“I'll go down with you,” George said. “One of the clerks promised to get me a box at the opera, or if that can't be had, to get the four best seats he could find disengaged. Do you think you will have finished with your expert in half an hour? I want the girls to see the opera bouffe; they have never seen it.”
“I shall be with you in fifteen minutes,” was the reply.
George was talking with the clerk about the seats at the opera, when he felt a hand laid softly on his shoulder. Looking back, he saw his friend, Charles Gunther, of New York, standing by him, and behind him the four gentlemen who had dined at the next table. After shaking hands most cordially, and congratulating him on being a married man, Gunther presented to George his four friends, and his brother Robert, who now came in; then he said:
“I heard you say you wanted a box at the opera, and that there are ladies with you. Permit me to offer you our box, we can take seats anywhere else. I shall be glad if you will accept.”
“But there are no seats that you can have that I would offer you in exchange,” was George's reply.