Mr. Tolman wheeled about.
"Eh—what did you say?" he inquired.
"I asked, sir, if that pocketbook was your property?" repeated the clerk.
Mr. Tolman faced his inquisitor.
"What business is that of yours?" he demanded curtly.
"I am sorry, sir, to appear rude," the hotel employee replied, "but we have been asked to be on the lookout for a young lad who rode this morning on one of the Fifth Avenue busses where a valuable pocketbook was lost. Your son tallies so well with the description that—"
"It was I," put in Stephen eagerly, without regard for consequences. "Who wants me?"
With a smile of eagerness he turned, expecting to encounter the genial face of his acquaintance of the morning. Then he would smile, hold out the pocketbook, and they would laugh together as he explained the adventure, and perhaps afterward have luncheon in company.
Instead no familiar form greeted him. On the contrary the slender man who had been standing beside the clerk came forward.
Mr. Tolman sensed the situation in a second.