McCann strode scornfully to the rear of the station and looked vaguely around to see if Aurelian had sent any kind of a conveyance to take him to his home,--of the location of which, save that it was to be reached from this particular station, McCann knew nothing. The prospect was not much better outside than in. The air was thick with fine white dust, and dazzling with fierce sunlight. On one side was a wall of brick tenements, with liquor saloons, cheap groceries, and a fish-market below, all adding their mite to the virulence of the dead, stifling air. Above, men in dirty shirt-sleeves lolled out of the grimy windows, where long festoons of half-washed clothes drooped sordidly. On the other side, gangs of workmen were hurriedly repairing the ravages of a fire that evidently had swept clear a large space in its well-meant but ineffectual attempts at purgation. Gaunt black chimneys wound with writhing gas-pipes, tottering fragments of wall blistered white on one side, piles of crumbling bricks where men worked sullenly loading blue carts, mingled with new work, where the walls, girdled with yellow scaffolding, were rising higher, uglier, than before; the plain factory walls with their rows of square windows less hideous by far than those buildings where some ignorant contractor was trying by the aid of galvanised iron to produce an effect of tawdry, lying magnificence. Dump-carts, market-waggons, shabby hacks, crawled or scurried along in the hot dust. A huge dray loaded with iron bars jolted over the granite pavement with a clanging, clattering din that was maddening. In fact, none of the adjuncts of a thriving, progressive town were absent, so far as one could see. McCann turned away from this spectacle of humiliating prosperity, and ran his eyes over the vehicles about the station, searching for some indication of his friend. He had thought that perhaps Aurelian might come himself; but he saw no sign of a familiar figure, no indication even of any conveyance that might belong to Aurelian Blake. The greater part of the carriages had gone, and now only remained an express-waggon or two, a decrepit old hack, an old-fashioned chaise, one or two nondescript country conveyances, and a particularly gorgeous victoria, drawn by a pair of splendid grey horses, a liveried driver sitting on the box in Ethiopian state. None of these vehicles could possibly belong to the fastidious but democratic Aurelian, and McCann almost thought his telegram must have miscarried. A black footman in fawn-coloured livery, wearing a small cockade of scarlet and silver, touched his hat to the sulky traveller. "Beg yo pahdon, suh, but ah yo Mistuh McCann, Mistuh Malcolm McCann, of Boston, suh?" "That is my name," said McCann, shortly. "I have the honnoh to be Mistuh Blake's footman, suh," and he touched the cockade in his hat again. "Will yo have the kindness to follow me, suh?"