[Illustration:  “He made straight for the main desk with its
  battalion of clerks”]

“Mr. Griebler in?  Mr. Ben Griebler, St. Louis?”

The question set in motion the hotel’s elaborate system of investigation.  At last:  “Not in.”

“Do you know when he will be in?” That futile question.

“Can’t say.  He left no word.  Do you want to leave your name?”

“N-no.  Would he—­does he stop at this desk when he comes in?”

He was an unusually urbane hotel clerk.  “Why, usually they leave their keys and get their mail from the floor clerk.  But Mr. Griebler seems to prefer the main desk.”

“I’ll—­wait,” said Jock.  And seated in one of the great thronelike chairs, he waited.  He sat there, slim and boyish, while the laughing, chattering crowd swept all about him.  If you sit long enough in that foyer you will learn all there is to learn about life.  An amazing sight it is—­that crowd.  Baraboo helps swell it, and Spokane, and Berlin, and Budapest, and Pekin, and Paris, and Waco, Texas.  So varied it is, so cosmopolitan, that if you sit there patiently enough, and watch sharply enough you will even see a chance New Yorker.

From door to desk Jock’s eyes swept.  The afternoon-tea crowd, in paradise feathers, and furs, and frock coats swam back and forth.  He saw it give way to the dinner throng, satin-shod, bejeweled, hurrying through its oysters, swallowing unbelievable numbers of cloudy-amber drinks, and golden-brown drinks, and maroon drinks, then gathering up its furs and rushing theaterwards.  He was still sitting there when that crowd, its eight o’clock freshness somewhat sullied, its sparkle a trifle dimmed, swept back for more oysters, more cloudy-amber and golden-brown drinks.

At half-hour intervals, then at hourly intervals, the figure in the great chair stirred, rose, and walked to the desk.

“Has Mr. Griebler come in?”

The supper throng, its laugh a little ribald, its talk a shade high-pitched, drifted towards the street, or was wafted up in elevators.  The throng thinned to an occasional group.  Then these became rarer and rarer.  The revolving door admitted one man, or two, perhaps, who lingered not at all in the unaccustomed quiet of the great glittering lobby.

The figure of the watcher took on a pathetic droop.  The eyelids grew leaden.  To open them meant an almost superhuman effort.  The stare of the new night clerks grew more and more hostile and suspicious.  A grayish pallor had settled down on the boy’s face.  And those lines of the night before stood out for all to see.

In the stillness of the place the big revolving door turned once more, complainingly.  For the thousandth time Jock’s eyes lifted heavily.  Then they flew wide open.  The drooping figure straightened electrically.  Half a dozen quick steps and Jock stood in the pathway of Ben Griebler who, rather ruffled and untidy, had blown in on the wings of the morning.