Next day, with an unnamed hope in his heart that something might happen, Hemming passed the Travers house. But the hope died at sight of it, for it was clearly unoccupied! He remained in town a few days longer, seeking familiar faces in familiar haunts, and finding none to his mind. He thought it strange that romance, and everything worth while, should have deserted the great city in so brief a time. But, for that matter, when he came to think of it, the whole world had lost colour. He decided that he was growing old--and perhaps too wise. After standing the genial publisher a dinner, and receiving a promise of a speedy decision on "Where Might Is Right," he returned to Maidmill-on-Dee, to spend weary months awaiting rumour of war. At last the rumour came, closely followed by sailing orders. CHAPTER IX. O'ROURKE TELLS A SAD STORY Upon his arrival in New York, Hemming called immediately upon Mr. Dodder, in the New York News Syndicate Building on Fulton Street. He found the manager even stouter than at the time of their first meeting, and of a redder countenance. His manner was as cordial as before, but his mood was not so jovial. "I am always worrying about something or other, and just now it is my health," he told Hemming. "You don't know what I'd give, captain, for a life like yours--and a good hard body like yours. But I can't drop this job now. It's the very devil, I can tell you, to have one's brain and nerves jumping and twanging all the time, while one's carcass lolls about and puts on fat. I'm sorry I was so smart when I was a kid. Otherwise the old man would not have sent me to college, and I'd never have hustled myself into this slavery. My father was a lumberman, and so was my grandfather. They had big bodies, just like mine, but they lived the right kind of lives for their bodies." Hemming felt sorry for him. He saw that the gigantic body was at strife with the manner of life to which it was held, and that the same physique that had proved itself a blessing to the lumberman, was a menace to the desk-worker. "Better take a few months in the woods," he suggested. Dodder laughed bitterly. "You might just as well advise me to take a few months in heaven," he said. Hemming asked for news of O'Rourke. The manager's face lighted. "O'Rourke," he exclaimed, "is a man wise in his generation. Shackles of gold couldn't hold that chap from his birthright of freedom. He did us some fine work for a time,--rode with Gomez and got his news out somehow or other,--but went under with enteric and left Cuba. We kept him on, of course, but as soon as he could move around again he resigned his position. He said he had some very pressing business affair to see to." "Is he well again?" asked Hemming, anxiously. "Oh, yes, he's able to travel," replied Dodder. "He was here only a week ago. He seems to be making a tour of the Eastern cities. I guess he's looking for something."