"Poor old Burgess," he said aloud as though to himself; "there wasn't a skinful in that bottle. Well, I can't get drunk, I can't lie here and count from six to midnight and keep my sanity, I can't smoke--you rascal, where's my cigar? And I certainly can't go out anywhere because I haven't any money." "You might take the air on the avenue, sir. Your clothes are in order." "Poor Burgess! That was your amusement, wasn't it?--to see me go out discreetly perfumed, in fine linen and purple, brave as the best of them in club and hall, in ballroom and supper room, and in every lesser hell from Crystal Palace cinders to Canal. "Poor Burgess! Even the seventy-five pretty waitresses at the Gaities would turn up their seventy-five retrousse noses at a man with pockets as empty as mine." "Your clothes are fashionable. So is your figger, sir." "That settles it?" protested the young fellow, weak with laughter. "Burgess, _don't_ go! Don't _ever_ go! I do need you. Oh I _do_ want you, Burgess. Because there never will be anybody exactly like you, and I've only one life in which to observe you, study you, and mentally digest you. You _won't_ go, will you?" "No sir," said Burgess with dignity. CHAPTER VI There was incipient demoralisation already in the offices of Craig & Son. Young gentlemen perched on high benches still searched city maps and explored high-way and by-way with compass and pencil-point, but their ears were alert to every shout from the streets, and their interest remained centred in the newspaper bulletins across the way, where excited crowds clamoured for details not forthcoming. All day, just outside the glass doors of the office, Broadway streamed with people; and here, where the human counter currents running north and south encountered amid the racket of omnibuses, carts, carriages, and drays, a vast overflow spread turbulently, eddying out around the recruiting stations and newspaper offices which faced the City Park. Sidewalks swarmed, the park was packed solid. Overhead flags flew from every flag pole, over every portal, across every alley and street and square--big nags, little flags, flags of silk, of cotton, of linen, of bunting, all waving wide in the spring sunshine, or hanging like great drenched flowers in the winnowing April rain. And it was very hard for the young gentlemen in the offices of Craig & Son to keep their minds on their business. Berkley had a small room to himself, a chair, a desk, a city map suspended against the wall, and no clients. Such occasional commissions as Craig & Son were able to give him constituted his sole source of income.