Hemming laughed shortly.
"You must not trouble yourself too much, Dicky, for it's really not worth while," he said.
A little later Hemming excused himself to his friend on the plea that he had to return to his hotel, and write some letters.
"I am my own master no longer," he said.
"I think you are just beginning," replied Anderson, drily.
Hemming looked into the future, saw his body journeying, vagrant as the wind, and his hand at a hundred adventures, but never an hour of freedom. He went down the wide steps and into the street with hell and longing in his heart.
Hemming spent two weeks in Greece. He wrote a few descriptive stories for his syndicate, and then crossed into Turkey, where he was offered a commission. He wired that fighting was certain. The syndicate thought otherwise, and called him across the world to see or make trouble in South America. He cursed their stupidity and started, spending only a few hours in England, and taking ship in Liverpool for New York. Arriving in that city, he and his possessions (and he carried a full outfit) journeyed in a cab to an old and respectable hotel on Broadway. The fare he had to pay opened his eyes. But what could he do beyond staring the cabby out of countenance with his baleful, glaring eye-glass? At the hotel, they were kind enough to take him for a duke in disguise. Next morning he found his way to the offices of the New York News Syndicate, in a high gray building on Fulton Street. He scrambled into one of the great caged elevators, close on the heels of a stout gentleman in a yellow spring overcoat and silk hat. The lift was lighted by several small electric bulbs. The air was warm, and heavy with the scent of stale cigarette smoke.
"New York News Syndicate," said Hemming to the attendant.
"Third floor," said the man, and up they shot and stopped. The iron grating was rolled back. Hemming stepped out into a cool, white-floored hall, and, turning, found the stout gentleman at his heels.
"I think you are Captain Hemming," said the stranger, "and I am quite sure I am Benjamin Dodder."