“What actor?” asked the master.

“Him as wears the shiny hat.  And hair.  And gold pin.  And gold chain,” said the just Aristides, putting periods for commas to eke out his breath.

The master put on his gloves and hat, feeling an unpleasant tightness in his chest and thorax, and walked out in the road.  Aristides trotted along by his side, endeavoring to keep pace with his short legs to the master’s strides, when the master stopped suddenly, and Aristides bumped up against him.  “Where were they talking?” asked the master, as if continuing the conversation.

“At the Arcade,” said Aristides.

When they reached the main street the master paused.  “Run down home,” said he to the boy.  “If Mliss is there, come to the Arcade and tell me.  If she isn’t there, stay home; run!” And off trotted the short-legged Aristides.

The Arcade was just across the way—­a long, rambling building containing a barroom, billiard room, and restaurant.  As the young man crossed the plaza he noticed that two or three of the passers-by turned and looked after him.  He looked at his clothes, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his face before he entered the barroom.  It contained the usual number of loungers, who stared at him as he entered.  One of them looked at him so fixedly and with such a strange expression that the master stopped and looked again, and then saw it was only his own reflection in a large mirror.  This made the master think that perhaps he was a little excited, and so he took up a copy of the red mountain Banner from one of the tables, and tried to recover his composure by reading the column of advertisements.

He then walked through the barroom, through the restaurant, and into the billiard room.  The child was not there.  In the latter apartment a person was standing by one of the tables with a broad-brimmed glazed hat on his head.  The master recognized him as the agent of the dramatic company; he had taken a dislike to him at their first meeting, from the peculiar fashion of wearing his beard and hair.  Satisfied that the object of his search was not there, he turned to the man with a glazed hat.  He had noticed the master, but tried that common trick of unconsciousness in which vulgar natures always fail.  Balancing a billiard cue in his hand, he pretended to play with a ball in the center of the table.  The master stood opposite to him until he raised his eyes; when their glances met, the master walked up to him.

He had intended to avoid a scene or quarrel, but when he began to speak, something kept rising in his throat and retarded his utterance, and his own voice frightened him, it sounded so distant, low, and resonant.  “I understand,” he began, “that Melissa Smith, an orphan, and one of my scholars, has talked with you about adopting your profession.  Is that so?”

The man with the glazed hat leaned over the table and made an imaginary shot that sent the ball spinning round the cushions.  Then, walking round the table, he recovered the ball and placed it upon the spot.  This duty discharged, getting ready for another shot, he said: