“Please send this to Miss Isaacson,” he said, handing out a firm card.

The clerk consulted an index and shook his head.  “No Miss Isaacson registered here,” he said.

“Oh, sure not,” Morris cried, smiling apologetically.  “I mean Miss Aaronson.”

Once more the clerk pawed over his card index.  “You’ve got the wrong hotel,” he declared.  “I don’t see any Miss Aaronson here, either.”

Morris scratched his head.  He mentally passed in review Jacobson, Abrahamson, and every other Biblical proper name combined with the suffix “son,” but rejected them all.

“The lady what I want to see it is buyer for a department store in Duluth, what arrived here this morning,” Morris explained.

“Let me see,” the clerk mused; “buyer, hey?  What was she a buyer of?”

“Cloaks and suits,” Morris answered.

“Suits, hey?” the clerk commented.  “Let me see—­buyer of suits.  Was that the lady that was expecting somebody with an automobile?”

Morris nodded emphatically.

“Well, that party called for her and they left here about ten minutes ago,” the clerk replied.

“What!” Morris gasped.

“Maybe it was five minutes ago,” the clerk continued.  “A gentleman with a red tie and a fine diamond pin.  His name was Tucker or Tuckerton or——­”

“Tuchman,” Morris cried.

“That’s right,” said the clerk; “he was a——­”

But Morris turned on his heel and darted wildly toward the entrance.

“Say!” he cried, hailing the carriage agent, “did you seen it a lady and a gent in an oitermobile leave here five minutes ago?”

“Ladies and gents leave here in automobiles on an average of every three minutes,” said the carriage agent.

“Sure, I know,” Morris continued, “but the gent wore it a red tie with a big diamond.”

“Red tie with a big diamond,” the carriage agent repeated.  “Oh, yeh—­I remember now.  The lady wanted to know where they was going, and the red necktie says up to the Heatherbloom Inn and something about getting back to his store afterward.”

Morris nodded vigorously.

“So I guess they went up to the Heatherbloom Inn,” the carriage agent said.

Once more Morris darted away without waiting to thank his informant, and again he climbed into the tonneau of the machine.

“Do you know where the Heatherbloom Inn is?” he asked the chauffeur.

“What you tryin’ to do?” the chauffeur commented.  “Kid me?”

“I ain’t trying to do nothing,” Morris explained.  “I ask it you a simple question:  Do you know where the Heatherbloom Inn is?”

“Say! do you know where Baxter Street is?” the chauffeur asked, and then without waiting for an answer he opened the throttle and they glided around the corner into Fifth Avenue.  It was barely half-past twelve and the tide of fashionable traffic had not yet set in.  Hence the motor car made good progress, nor was it until Fiftieth Street was reached that a block of traffic caused them to halt.  An automobile had collided with a delivery wagon, and a wordy contest was waging between the driver of the wagon, the chauffeur, one of the occupants of the automobile and a traffic-squad policeman.