“Maybe,” said Tom aloud, “I’ve starved to death and got to heaven. But I don’t feel dead.” Then, with returning animation, he strode forward again. “Me for the music,” he said. Less than a minute later a great dark bulk took shape and form ahead of him. At first it seemed like the edge of a woods, but as the music increased momentarily that was out of the question. No, plainly it was a building, and a big one! And in another minute Tom was standing in a gravel roadway in front of a big hotel which stretched away on either side of him. There were lights inside, and an orchestra was playing merrily. The windows of the lower floor were dimmed with the fog, but he could see the indistinct forms of persons inside and the dancing light of a fire. Directly in front of him was a covered porch and beyond it the wide glass doors. Tom drew the blanket from over his head, folded it as neatly as he might, laid it across his arm and, bareheaded and bedraggled, crossed the porch, opened the door and went in. He found himself in a great, luxuriously furnished hall. At the back a wide staircase ascended. In the center a huge fireplace held a pile of blazing logs. Beyond it, half obscured by palms in tubs, a scarlet-coated orchestra was playing. To his right was a long counter behind which two immaculate clerks moved. About the fireplace and spreading across the big exchange were seated many persons. They had been talking very industriously until the door opened. But for some reason at Tom’s advent the conversation lessened and lessened until, as he walked across the shining oak floor, there was an impressive silence. The two clerks stopped their work and gazed at him in amused surprise. Tom, aware of the effect he was causing but caring not at all, stopped at the desk, stuck his hands in his pockets and addressed the nearest clerk in the calmest manner possible. “I would like to see the manager, if you please,” said Tom. [Illustration: “‘I would like to see the manager, if you please.’”] CHAPTER XIX—NARRATES A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE The fog held close until just before sunset, although there were times when the three on the _Vagabond_ could make out the shore quite distinctly and thereby gained a very fair notion of where they lay. When the mist finally disappeared inland they found their notion to be correct. The launch lay some hundred yards from shore to the east of the river’s mouth. Just how they had managed to reach the position it was hard to say, although Nelson’s idea was that they had become both actually and metaphorically turned around when the launch had gone aground and had subsequently, instead of running upstream, crossed it diagonally and passed out toward the east.