He passed twenty-four hours on the train, and left it at Cleveland for the half-hour it stopped for supper. But he could not eat; he had to own to himself that he was beaten, and that he must return, or throw himself into the lake. He ran hastily to the baggage-car, and effected the removal of his bag; then he went to the ticket-office, and waited at the end of a long queue for his turn at the window. His turn came at last, and he confronted the nervous and impatient ticket-agent, without speaking. “Well, sir, what do you want?” demanded the agent. Then, with rising temper, “What is it? Are you deaf? Are you dumb? You can't expect to stand there all night!” The policeman outside the rail laid his hand on Bartley's shoulder: “Move on, my friend.” He obeyed, and reeled away in a fashion that confirmed the policeman's suspicions. He searched his pockets again and again; but his porte-monnaie was in none of them. It had been stolen, and Halleck's money with the rest. Now he could not return; nothing remained for him but the ruin he had chosen. XXXII. Halleck prolonged his summer vacation beyond the end of October. He had been in town from time to time and then had set off again on some new absence; he was so restless and so far from well during the last of these flying visits, that the old people were glad when he wrote them that he should stay as long as the fine weather continued. He spoke of an interesting man whom he had met at the mountain resort where he was staying; a Spanish-American, attached to one of the Legations at Washington, who had a scheme for Americanizing popular education in his own country. “He has made a regular set at me,” Halleck wrote, “and if I had not fooled away so much time already on law and on leather, I should like to fool away a little more on such a cause as this.” He did not mention the matter again in his letters; but the first night after his return, when they all sat together in the comfort of having him at home again, he asked his father, “What should you think of my going to South America?” The old man started up from the pleasant after-supper drowse into which he was suffering himself to fall, content with Halleck's presence, and willing to leave the talk to the women folk. “I don't know what you mean, Ben?” “I suppose it's my having the matter so much in mind that makes me feel as if we had talked it over. I mentioned it in one of my letters.” “Yes,” returned his father; “but I presumed you were joking.”