“And, young man, you must open the door, and go right in. Don’t stop to knock; for Mr. Diddler owes money to various people, and sometimes he will not answer when he is summoned. Go in without ceremony.” Again the boy from the country ascended to the upper regions of the hotel: and, without going far, his conductor led him to the room on the door of which was the number which the clerk had named last. The bell-boy did not wait, but left him to carry out the instructions he had received in the office. Wade was in no hurry to open the door. Perhaps Mr. Klucker, who was not much of a saint after all, might be ugly: he might show fight. But Wade meant to stick to him till he had got his money back. Placing his hand on the knob of the door, he hesitated a moment, and wished he had a club, or something to defend himself with if the missionary showed fight. After he had braced his nerves up to the sticking-point, he turned the knob, and shoved the door wide open, so that Mr. Klucker could not shut it before he had time to enter. It was not fastened, as it might have been, and yielded to the first force he applied. If ever Wade Brooks was astonished, it was when he opened that door, and saw who were in the room. He was prepared to find the New York saint, and no one else. But in that room, considering the size of it, saints were scarce, and sinners plenty. At the table in the middle of the chamber sat two boys, counting a pile of money, or rather the two piles of money into which they had divided the one. The two boys were Lon Trustleton and Matt Swikes. The reader is not half so much astonished as Wade Brooks was when he saw his late fellow-voyagers in the “Mud-turtle,” settled in a room in the Fifth Avenue Hotel; for he knows that the young rascals had not given up their “good time” in the great city, and that Matt had obtained possession again of the wallet and its contents. After breakfast, Matt had looked up his companion in crime; and, when they had laid their plans, they walked to the next station north of Midhampton, which was not the way to go to New York direct, and took a train. As something had been said by Wade about going to New York, they were afraid of being followed if they went the other way. By a roundabout route, they reached New York, and had just arrived. Lon wanted to take charge of the money this time; but the best Matt would do was to divide, and they had made two piles of the money that remained after paying their expenses so far.