All this gossip Wheaton turned over in his mind, as he lay on his divan, with the cuttings from the Clarkson papers in his hands. He remembered a complaint often heard in Clarkson that there were no eligible men there; he was not sure just what constituted eligibility, but as he reviewed the men that went about he could not see that they possessed any advantages over himself. It occurred to him for the first time that he was the only unmarried bank cashier in town; and this in itself conferred a distinction. He was not so secure in his place as he should like to be; if Thompson died there would undoubtedly be a reorganization of the bank and the few shares that Porter had sold to him would not hold the cashiership for him. It might be that Porter's plan was to keep him in the place until Grant grew up. Again, he reflected, the man who married Evelyn Porter would become an element to reckon with; and yet if he were to be that man-- He slept and dreamed that he was king of a great realm and that Evelyn Porter reigned with him as queen; then he awoke with a start to find that it was late. He sat up on the couch and gathered together the newspaper cuttings which had fallen about him. He remembered the imperative summons which had been left for him during the morning; it was already six o'clock. Before going out he changed his clothes to a rough business suit and took a car that bore him rapidly through the business district and beyond, into the older part of Clarkson. The locality was very shabby, and when he left the car presently it was to continue his journey in an ill-lighted street over board walks which yielded a precarious footing. The Occidental Hotel was in the old part of town, and had long ago ceased to be what it had once been, the first hostelry of Clarkson. It had descended to the level of a cheap boarding house, little patronized except by the rougher element of cattlemen and by railroad crews that found it convenient to the yards. Over the door a dim light blinked, and this, it was understood in the neighborhood, meant not merely an invitation to bed and board but also to the Occidental bar, which was accessible at all hours of the day and night, and was open through all the spasms of virtue with which the city administration was seized from time to time. The door stood open and Wheaton stepped up to the counter on which a boy sat playing with a cat. "Is William Snyder stopping here?" he asked. The boy looked up lazily from his play. "Are you the gent he's expecting?" "Very likely. Is he in?" "Yes, he's number eighteen." He dropped the cat and led Wheaton down a dark hall which was stale with the odors of cooked vegetables, up a steep flight of stairs to a landing from which he pointed to an oblong of light above a door. "There you are," said the boy. He kicked the door and retreated down the stairs, leaving Wheaton to obey the summons to enter which was bawled from within.