At the hotel they found a line of people reaching half-way down the outer steps from the inside of the office. "Hallo! what's this?" asked the colonel of the last man in the queue. "O, it's a little procession to the hotel register! We've been three quarters of an hour in passing a given point," said the man, who was plainly a fellow-citizen. "And haven't got by yet," said the colonel, taking to the speaker. "Then the house is full?" "Well, no; they haven't begun to throw them out of the window." "His humor is degenerating, Dick," said Kitty; and "Hadn't you better go inside and inquire?" asked Mrs. Ellison. It was part of the Ellison travelling joke for her thus to prompt the colonel in his duty. "I'm glad you mentioned it, Fanny. I was just going to drive off in despair." The colonel vanished within doors, and after long delay came out flushed, but not with triumph. "On the express condition that I have ladies with me, one an invalid, I am promised a room on the fifth floor some time during the day. They tell me the other hotel is crammed and it's no use to go there." Mrs. Ellison was ready to weep, and for the first time since her accident she harbored some bitterness against Mr. Arbuton. They all sat silent, and the colonel on the sidewalk silently wiped his brow. Mr. Arbuton, in the poverty of his invention, wondered if there was not some lodging-house where they could find shelter. "Of course there is," cried Mrs. Ellison, beaming upon her hero, and calling Kitty's attention to his ingenuity by a pressure with her well foot. "Richard, we must look up a boarding-house." "Do you know of any good boarding-houses?" asked the colonel of the driver, mechanically. "Plenty," answered the man. "Well, drive us to twenty or thirty first-class ones," commanded the colonel; and the search began.