tered the room. "Don't you know everyone has gone home, and we shall
be late for dinner?"

CHAPTER IX.

OAKHURST.

On a Saturday morning in early June, about five months after Duncan's
visit to Chicago, Rennsler Van Vort, attired in tweeds and carrying a
bag in one hand and a bundle of coats and sticks in the other, pushed
rapidly past the ticket collector of a Jersey City ferry. He was on his
way to spend Sunday with the Osgoods at their place near Morristown, and
his haste was inspired by the knowledge that if he missed the next boat
he would be left to wander about the most unattractive portion of New
York for at least another half-hour. He managed, however, to reach the
ferry-boat just before she started, and was congratulating himself on
his good fortune, when he observed a man with a bag in each hand,
running in hot haste down the incline leading to the boat. The iron
gates were closed; the windlasses were clicking rapidly as the mooring
hawsers were being wound around, and the great paddle wheels had begun
to stir the waters of the slip to seething foam. The man at the windlass
tried to restrain the tardy passenger's efforts to reach the boat, but
he brushed past him and leapt onto her deck, just as she had begun to
move out from the slip.

"Great Scot! Duncan, did you drop from the clouds?" said Van Vort, as
the breathless runner, aided by a deck hand, clambered over the iron
gate.

"No, I beat the gate-keeper," replied Duncan, as he came to a stop
beside Rennsler and deposited his bags on the deck. "He was just
shutting the stile, and called to me to stop, but I didn't care to bask
on the docks for an hour, so I gave him the slip and here I am."

"That explains your flying leap on the boat, but did you jump across the
pond also?" asked Van Vort. "The last time I saw you, you were going to
Chicago; then I heard you were in London, and now you make an amazing
appearance on a Jersey ferry. You must have taken up jugglery, old
chap."

"An old loafer like you doesn't know anything about business; if you did
you might appreciate my flights."

"Never mind if I don't," answered Van Vort, resting his arm on the rail
and gazing into the water as it surged under the paddle wheels. "Tell me
what took you to London and what brought you back."

"Well, I went to Chicago, as you know," answered Duncan, "to look after
an elevator syndicate. I was there a week, got things straightened up,
took the 'Limited' o