"At midnight you are to meet Red Mike at Cherry Street and Broadway to accompany him to see how he robs national banks, for the _Sunday Whirald_." "What bank is it to be?" "The Seventeenth National." "Gad!" cried Van Squibber, "that's hard luck. It's my bank. Wire Red Mike and ask him to make it the Sixteenth National, at once. Bring me my smoking-jacket and a boiled soda mint drop. I don't care for any breakfast this morning. And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. Take a quinine pill for me." "Your egg is ready, sir," said the man, tremulously. "Eat it," said Van Squibber, tersely, "and deduct the Café Savarin price of a boiled egg from your salary. How often must I tell you not to have my breakfast boiled until I am boil--I mean ready until I am ready for it?" The man departed silently, and Van Squibber turned over and went to sleep. An hour later, having waited for his soda mint drop as long as his dignity would permit, Van Squibber arose and dressed and went for a walk in Central Park. It was eccentric of him to do this, but he did it nevertheless. "How Travers would laugh if he saw me walking in Central Park!" he thought. "He'd probably ask me when I'd come over from Germany," he added. And then, looking ahead, a thing Van Squibber rarely did, by-the-way--for you can't always tell by looking ahead what may happen to you--his eyes were confronted by a more or less familiar back. "Dear me!" he said. "If that isn't Eleanor Huyler's back, whose back is it, by Jove?" Insensibly Van Squibber quickened his pace. This was also a thing he rarely did. "Haste is bad form," he had once said to Travers, who, on leaving Delmonico's at 7.20, seemed anxious to catch the 7.10 train for Riverdale. Insensibly quickening his pace, he soon found himself beside the owner of the back, and, as his premonitions had told him, it was Eleanor Huyler. "Good-morning," he said. "Why, Mr. Van Squibber!" she replied, with a terrified smile. "You here?" "Well," returned Van Squibber, not anxious to commit himself, "I think so, though I assure you, Miss Huyler, I am not at all certain. I seem to be here, but I must confess I am not quite myself this morning. My man--" "Yes--I know," returned the girl, hastily. "I've heard of him. He is your _alter ego_." "I had not noticed it," said Van Squibber, somewhat nonplussed. "I think he is English, though he may be Italian, as you suggest. But," he added, to change the subject, "you seem disturbed. Your smile is a terrified smile, as has been already noted." "It is," said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously about her. "And may I ask why?" asked Van Squibber, politely--for to do things politely was Van Squibber's ambition.