While being bowled rapidly down Broadway, Frederick, in his state of introspection and shame, looked blindly upon the houses as they glided by. Suddenly he started up from his crouching position. The sign of the Hoffman House had struck his eye and recalled the appointment the men on the _Hamburg_ had made. He consulted his watch, and found it was just about the time they had set, between twelve and one. He called to the driver, but before the horse could be brought to a stop, the cab had rolled some distance beyond the hotel. Frederick got out, paid the coachman, and in a few moments was inside the well-known New York bar-room. He saw a long bar, marble slabs, marble wainscoting, polished brass, polished silver, shining mirrors, on which there was not the smallest speck of dust, very many shining glasses, empty glasses, glasses with straws sticking in them, and glasses partially filled with bits of ice. Bar-keepers in spotless white linen prepared the famous American drinks, innumerable in variety, with a dexterity bordering on art and a stolidity out of which nothing could shake them. The wall behind the bar was studded within reaching distance with an array of gleaming polished metal taps; back of the bar were the passageways to the pantries and kitchen. Oil paintings hung above the taps and doorways. Over the heads of the business men standing or leaning at the bar, with derbies or silk hats shoved back from their foreheads, Frederick saw a delicious woman's figure by Courbet; sheep by Troyon; a bright seascape with clouds by Dupre; several choice pieces by Daubigny, sheep on a dune landscape, a pool reflecting the full moon hanging low over the horizon and two cud-chewing oxen; a Corot--a tree, a cow, water, a glorious evening sky; a Diaz--a pond, old birches, light reflected in the water; a Rousseau--a gigantic tree in a storm; a Millet--a pot with turnips, pewter spoons and knives; a dark portrait by Delacroix; another Courbet, a landscape; a small Bastien-Lepage, a girl and a man in the grass with a great deal of light; and many other excellent pictures. He was so fascinated that he almost forgot his recent experience and his purpose in coming. In his complete absorption, he was only vaguely annoyed by a rather loud group, whose boisterous laughter and restlessness contrasted sharply with the quiet demeanour of the other guests. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, started, looked around and met the eyes of a man whose bearded face seemed coarse and unfamiliar. Cocktails and other good drinks had shot his peony complexion with a bluish tinge. "What's the matter?" the stranger said. "Don't you know me--Captain Butor?"