Between the hours of five and six he sought a livery stable, and asked for a driver and sleigh to take himself and a lady to the Cortlandt street ferry. As the stable keeper was a stranger to him, he did not think it necessary to disguise his voice; but spoke in his natural tone, and a youth who was lounging about the office started and gave him a keen, curious glance. Standish did not notice the young man, or he would have perhaps recognized him as the messenger-boy from the hospital where Harry Hawthorne had been taken after the accident--the youth from whom he had taken the letter to Geraldine. Robert had promised Hawthorne that he would at some time pay Standish for his treachery, but fate had been unkind to him so far in the continued absence of Standish from the city, and the youth had almost forgotten the incident until the clear, ringing voice of Standish, familiar to his ears from hearing it on the stage, broke on him, awakening remembrance like a flash of light. He started and gave him a keen glance that quickly penetrated the actor's disguise, especially as he was off guard for the moment, and his square shoulders and erect bearing betrayed him to those suspicious eyes. Robert shrank back into the shadow, thinking: "So he's got back to town, that scamp! Now I wonder what he's up to in that disguise? But he can't fool me! I know his voice and his square shoulders too well. I wish I could do him up, the grand villain, for playing me that low trick!" On the alert for something on which to base a plan of retaliation, he followed every word and movement, and, to his amazement, when Standish got into the elegant sleigh, he heard him give the address of Geraldine, where he had carried Hawthorne's note. Now, Robert had left the hospital, and obtained a place with his cousin, the keeper of the livery stable, and a wild thought came into his mind. "That fellow's up to some mischief, or he wouldn't be in that rig--whiskers and spectacles! Wonder if that girl's got back, anyway? S'pose I go and tell the fireman about it, and see if he can make anything out of this strange lark?" Turning to his cousin, who was very fond of the quick-witted youth, he said, roguishly: "Seems like that fellow's going to take his best girl for a jolly sleigh-ride. Puts me in mind to take mine, too. Can't I get off for an hour and have a little one-horse sleigh?" "Who's to pay for it, Impudence?" "I am, of course! You can keep my week's salary for it. Who minds a little extravagance like that for his best girl, I'd like to know?" and ten minutes later he was driving in style to the Ludlow street engine-house. "Mr. Hawthorne in the house?" he hallooed to a fireman in front. "Too late, sonny. He left fifteen minutes ago." "Where to?" "Don't know, really." "Can't you form some idea, please?" the boy cried, dropping the jaunty air in some anxiety. The blue-shirted fireman stuck his hands in his pocket, whistled, and answered: