n that. Nor was there time for a
tailor. Therefore he went direct to a clothing-store in Market Street
and in something less than half an hour had bought suit, hat, shoes,
socks, shirt, collar, and tie.

"I can have the alterations made by to-morrow afternoon," said the
salesman.

"What alterations?" demanded King, turning before the long glass and
staring at his new finery.

"The coat is a trifle tight just here--the trousers----"

King laughed.

"As long as I'm satisfied, you are, aren't you?" he said.

The clerk watched him with admiring eyes as he went out. For the clerk,
an odd thing in a man who sold clothing and therefore was prone to judge
by clothes, caught a glimpse of the real man.

"Big mining man, most likely," muttered the clerk. "Don't care for
clothes and is rich enough to get by with whatever he wears." He looked
vaguely envious.

King was busied for an hour or so, finding quarters for his cub,
registering at the St. Francis, getting a shave and hair-cut. A
manicurist saw his hands and, smothering a giggle, pointed them out to
the young fellow she was working on.

"Go after them," he grinned. "There's a fortune for you in them."

"Nothing doing," she returned from her higher wisdom. "He ain't the kind
that knows he's got any hands unless he's got a job for them to do."

Later King telephoned to the Gaynor home. A maid answered and informed
him that Mr. Gaynor had not arrived yet, though he was expected this
afternoon or in the morning; that both Mrs. and Miss Gaynor were out.
King hung up without leaving his name.

King sat in the lobby, musing on San Francisco. As Gloria had said, it
was a wilderness of its own sort. Time was when it had appealed to him;
that was in the younger collegiate days. He wondered what had happened
to his one-time proud evening regalia; how he had strutted in it, dances
and dinners and theatre-parties! But briefly and long, long ago. It was
like a half-forgotten former incarnation; or, rather, like the
unfamiliar existence of some other man. He grew restless over his paper
and strolled into the bar. There he was fortunate enough to stumble on a
man he knew, an old mining engineer. The two got off into a corner and
talked. Later they dined and went to the theatre together.

The next evening King got a taxi, called for his bear cub, stopped at a
florist's for an armful of early violets, and growing more eager and
impatient at every block was off to the Gaynor hom