"Otherwise you would suffer in some strange way.
"When I open my battery, you must publicly resign your place by a simple telegram. And then jump out of New York to some secret haunt until I telegraph you to come to Detroit and make your deeds for the stolen property."
Clayton saw the cogency of his friend's reasoning, and, after agreeing to meet Witherspoon in the Astor Rotunda each evening until the sailing of the "Fuerst Bismarck," he proceeded to the office to take up the white man's burden.
Swinging down Fourteenth Street from Broadway, he paused once more to look at the lovely Danube scene smiling out from the window of the Newport Art Gallery.
It was an exquisite artist proof and bore the name of the Viennese artist and a pencilled address. "I'll buy it at once," thought the man whose memory now brought back that lovely, wistful face.
As his foot was on the doorstep he paused. "No! It may bring her back to me! When I go out to the bank I can step in and secure it. It can remain on exhibition in the window for a few days. She may be there again to-day, who knows?"
He was under the spell of the unknown beauty again, as he absently exclaimed, "Pardon me!" when he rudely jostled a sedate-looking gentleman emerging from the gallery. "My fault, sir," courteously remarked Mr. Fritz Braun, beaming benevolently through his blue glass eye screens.
The pharmacist turned and raised a warning finger as Clayton hastened away to resume his morning duties.
In the doorway, following Braun's mouse-colored overcoat, as he mingled with the "madding crowd," stood Mr. Adolph Lilienthal, the proprietor of the "Art Emporium."
Briskly rubbing his hands, the art dealer murmured "Vot devilment is Fritz up to, now?"