He didn’t know it then, but this was the last time for many days he was to see the inside of the Rookery Building.
Nor did he dream of the tragedy that awaited his return to the office.
CHAPTER II.
BOUND WEST.
Vance went to a Clark Street restaurant and had supper.
It was all right, but the boy did not enjoy it as much as he would have done at home.
The Thorntons lived in a small house, one of a row, on the North Side, which Mrs. Thornton owned.
They had once been wealthy, for Mr. Thornton had at one time been a successful member of the Chicago Board of Trade.
But a few months before his death, which had occurred ten years previously, he had been caught in a short deal and squeezed.
He extricated himself at the cost of his entire fortune.