"Hello!" said Mitchell. "Here's the tunnel and Hoboken. Let's go back to our belongings. Now, Thompson, business first and pleasure after, you know. You take the Barclay Street boat. If I don't get time to see you before noon to-morrow you run up to the office and see me. It's only a block from the Cornucopia. I've got to go the other way, and so does Loring--at least his studio's uptown. I say, Loring, tell Mr. Thompson what's doing at the theatres. That's in your line." Loring named several plays, recommending one as particularly good. In the waiting-room they parted with warm handshakings and great good-will. "Do you suppose he's wise?" said Loring, on the ferry. Mitchell guffawed. "That bumpkin? Not he. The poor, dumb idiot took it all as a practical joke among friends. Naturally, just as he said, he thought I'd give you your money back. Glad you had presence of mind enough to go on through with the five-spot. It's fine business to be able to think on your feet, especially for us moon-minions. Good thing it turned out the way it did. He's got perfect confidence in me now--he's seen me tried, and _knows_ I'm straight. We'll get more out of him in the long run." He explained Steve's mining expectations at length. "I don't like it much," said Loring. "It's a bad sign. My experience is that it's hard to overreach a man that isn't on the hog himself. When they're eager to annex something dishonestly you get 'em every time. Maybe you'll lose him. Why didn't you stay with him? He may not go to the Cornucopia at all." "Oh, yes, he will!" said Mitchell confidently. "I am going to play him for all he's worth, and I want him to feel sure I'm O.K. It might make him suspicious if I kept at his coat tails. Plenty of time. I won't even look him up to-morrow. Rig the old joint as my office, and wait there till he hunts me up. Let him make all the advances, d'ye see? Teach him bridge, on the square, at night. Let him win a little--just enough to keep him satisfied with himself--_you_'ll see. Wait till he draws his wad, and we'll throw the gaff in him to the queen's taste. If he won't nibble at one hook try another. But, I say, Billy, you'll have to furnish the scads for bait, in case he don't? rise to something easy. I know you're flush from that Manning job." * * * * * Meantime, with unspoiled and sparkling eye, the inlander saw, broad sweeping before him, mist-bordered, dream-vast, dim-seen beneath the lowering sky, the magic city whose pulsings send and call a nation's life-blood.