The seat he selected was as far as possible removed from the one which Mr. Hastings occupied. It was no part of Tode's plan to be discovered by that gentleman just at present. On the whole, this part of his journey was voted "tame." He had to sit up in his seat, and show his ticket like any one else; and it required no skill at all to forget to jump off at Castleton, and so of necessity be carried on. He sauntered over in Mr. Hastings' vicinity once, and heard an important conversation. "Can you tell me, sir," inquired that gentleman of his next neighbor, "whether by taking the midnight train at Albany I shall reach Buffalo in time to connect with a train on the Lake Shore Road?" "You will, sir; but it is a slow train. By keeping right on now you can connect with the Lake Shore Express." "I know; but I have business that will detain me in Albany." "So have I," muttered Tode, well pleased with the arrangement, and went back to his seat. * * * * * "Halloo, Tode! where you been?" called out a sixteen-year old comrade from a cellar grocery window, as Tode turned out of Broadway that same evening. "Been traveling for my health. Say, Jerry, seen anything of father lately?" "He's gone off on a frolic. Went night before last--bag and baggage." "Where did he go?" Jerry shook his head. "More than I know. Doubt if he knew himself about the time he started; but he'll bring up all right after a spell, likely." Landed in Albany, the only home he knew, Tode had his first touch of loneliness and depression. The cellar was closed, his father gone, no one knew where nor for how long an absence, nor even if he meant to return at all. Tode was cold and dreary. Up to this time he had followed out his whim of belonging to the owner of the fur cloak, merely _as_ a whim, with no definite purpose at all; but now, queerly enough, parted with the man with whom he had journeyed, and over whom he kept so close a watch during these four days, he had a feeling of loneliness as if he had lost something--he begun to wish he did belong to him in very truth. Suppose he did, worked for him say, and earned a warm place to sleep in of nights--this was the hight of his present ambition. The warm place to sleep suggested to him the good night's rest under the cloak, and also the fact that there was another bitter night shutting down rapidly over the earth, and that he had no spot for shelter. "I'll push on," he said at last, in a decisive tone. "I'd as lief go to Buffalo as anywhere else--the thing is to get there; but then I can get _on_ the cars, and get _off_ at Buffalo if I can, and before if I _have_ to." This matter settled, his spirits began to rise at once; and by the time Mr. Hastings and he crowded their way through the midnight train, the cars contained no such gleeful spirit as Tode Mall's.