Outside, Joe’s friends boarded cabs for their several destinations. Gillett and Keep went off together. Joe was left alone with a spice of anger in his breast. These men were willing to let him flatter them; willing to let him make money for them; but they never asked him home. However, the feeling quickly passed. To Hell with it! thought Joe; when I’m ready, I’ll make my way into any house in New York! For the moment he was at a loose end. He hesitated on the sidewalk. Where to find amusement? A recollection of that kid’s queer look came back to him. Turning, he went through the doors again. II On Saturday afternoon, after a long prowl about the picturesque edges of Manhattan, Wilfred made his way to Martin’s café. This was a treat he could occasionally give himself. It was rather awful to enter the place alone, but once you got your legs under a table, you sank into a comfortable insignificance. And what a scene for the connoisseur of humanity! he thought. Martin’s was the center of New York life—not fashionable life, because that had moved up-town with Delmonico’s; but fashionable people hardly counted nowadays; the best-known writers, artists, actors; men of the hour in every walk of life, frequented Martin’s. And exquisite women! the flower of New York’s women; who cared what their social status might be? Wilfred could not meet the eye of one of these delicate creatures, but in his mind he explored them through and through. In his mind he experienced the gallant way of dealing with them. Sometimes when he overheard snatches of conversation at near-by tables, he burned to tell the whining male for the honor of his sex, that _that_ was not the way! On the present occasion when he looked about the rooms, he received an unpleasant shock upon beholding Joe Kaplan seated at a table in the vicinity, the center of a group of admiring older men. Oh Lord! can I never hope to escape him! thought Wilfred. The face of one of Joe’s companions struck familiarly on his sight; a face that had been reproduced in the newspapers; handsome, dusky, florid; blurred a little by self-indulgence. Cooper Gillett, of course. It _would_ be a multi-millionaire, thought Wilfred, sneering. He saw that Joe’s own style had improved very much. He had lost his too-sleek appearance. Joe, who was always learning, had discovered that the acme of good taste in men’s dress was expressed in an elegant carelessness. He was wearing a suit of grey homespun, obviously made by the most eminent of tailors. His tie was of a soft silk, cornflower blue; and he had a knot of ragged cornflowers stuck in his buttonhole. His hair lay on his head like a raven’s wing; his skin was as pink as a baby’s; the teeth he revealed in his frequent smiles were as gleaming and regular as a savage’s. What if his eyes were a little too close together? they sparkled with zest and good humor. Well, he could afford to be good-humored. He lived.