Roger was filled with confusion and anger.  A hoax on the part of some of the Corn Cob Club, he thought to himself.  He flushed painfully to recall the simplicity of his glee.

“Please don’t be embarrassed,” said Mr. Oldham, seeing the little man’s vexation.  “Don’t let’s consider the trip wasted.  Won’t you come out and dine with me in the country this evening, and see my things?”

But Roger was too proud to accept this balm, courteous as it was.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid I can’t do it.  I’m rather busy at home, and only came over because I believed this to be urgent.”

“Some other time, perhaps,” said Mr. Oldham.  “Look here, you’re a bookseller?  I don’t believe I know your shop.  Give me your card.  The next time I’m in New York I’d like to stop in.”

Roger got away as quickly as the other’s politeness would let him.  He chafed savagely at the awkwardness of his position.  Not until he reached the street again did he breathe freely.

“Some of Jerry Gladfist’s tomfoolery, I’ll bet a hat,” he muttered.  “By the bones of Fanny Kelly, I’ll make him smart for it.”

Even Aubrey, picking up the trail again, could see that Roger was angry.

“Something’s got his goat,” he reflected.  “I wonder what he’s peeved about?”

They crossed Broad Street and Roger started off down Chestnut.  Aubrey saw the bookseller halt in a doorway to light his pipe, and stopped some yards behind him to look up at the statue of William Penn on the City Hall.  It was a blustery day, and at that moment a gust of wind whipped off his hat and sent it spinning down Broad Street.  He ran half a block before he recaptured it.  When he got back to Chestnut, Roger had disappeared.  He hurried down Chestnut Street, bumping pedestrians in his eagerness, but at Thirteenth he halted in dismay.  Nowhere could he see a sign of the little bookseller.  He appealed to the policeman at that corner, but learned nothing.  Vainly he scoured the block and up and down Juniper Street.  It was eleven o’clock, and the streets were thronged.

He cursed the book business in both hemispheres, cursed himself, and cursed Philadelphia.  Then he went into a tobacconist’s and bought a packet of cigarettes.

For an hour he patrolled up and down Chestnut Street, on both sides of the way, thinking he might possibly encounter Roger.  At the end of this time he found himself in front of a newspaper office, and remembered that an old friend of his was an editorial writer on the staff.  He entered, and went up in the elevator.

He found his friend in a small grimy den, surrounded by a sea of papers, smoking a pipe with his feet on the table.  They greeted each other joyfully.

“Well, look who’s here!” cried the facetious journalist.  “Tamburlaine the Great, and none other!  What brings you to this distant outpost?”

Aubrey grinned at the use of his old college nickname.