The few passers-by who had collected around the ladies at the time of the insult, had separated when they proved to be in the company of male acquaintances; and in a moment after the recognition between Harding and Joe Harris, the latter had introduced Miss Bell Crawford, the heroine of the cerise ribbon, to both the gentlemen; and she had received an introduction which caused her to start and color singularly the moment their eyes met--to Mr. Tom Leslie, traveler, newspaper-correspondent, Jack-at-all-trades and general good fellow. Was that interested and conscious look repaid by another on the part of Tom Leslie, or had he had sufficient time after seeing the young girl and before speaking to her, to recover from any agitation, pleasurable or the contrary, incident to the meeting? Did they know each other or only something _of_ each other? Had they met before, and if so, when and where? Perhaps some light may be thrown on all these questions, a little later in the progress of this story. At the present juncture two of the parties were hungry; the third what is called "peckish," which means a _little_ hungry and quite capable of bolting a sandwich or the wing of a cold turkey; and the fourth very much in a hurry and anxious to get away to his business. "We sent our carriage home, knowing that we could not get through Broadway while the troops were passing," said Bell Crawford, "with orders to have it call for us late in the afternoon, at a friend's house near Union Square. We were just going down to Taylor's for a little lunch, when this awkward affair occurred: may we ask you to join us, gentlemen?" "Oh yes," said Josephine Harris, with her school-girl pleasure at the proposition ill-concealed. "That will be--yes, well, I may as well say out what I think--that will be jolly." "As for my friend Leslie here," said Harding, "_he_ has nothing to do, and can certainly ask no greater pleasure than to join you. We were just about separating when we saw you. For myself, I _must_ forego the pleasure, for I have the misfortune to be a busy man, and I must really wish you a hurried good-morning, leaving you in my friend's care." With a promise to call upon the ladies at his earliest convenience, the young merchant hurried away, with every evidence that his thoughts were intent upon the balance at his banker's and the question whether certain regular customers who were to have called during the morning had been duly impressed by his clerks with the merits of certain choice styles of goods, rapidly on the rise, that he would himself have commended to their particular attention. And yet there are odd mixtures, sometimes, even in the minds of merchants--mixtures in which customers become blended with curls and profits with profiles; for Walter Lane Harding, as he wasted yet one more moment to step into Gilsey's and light a choice Havana, indulged in a train of thought which might have been shaped into words something in the manner following: