New Yorker reads the papers religiously to keep up to
the minute; whereas, in Honduras, it was the custom for busy men to let
the papers accumulate and then read a week's supply at a sitting.

Aside from his name in the list of arrivals, Prale found no word
concerning himself, though there was mention of other men who had come
on the _Manatee_, and who had no special claim to prominence.

"I don't amount to much, I guess," said Prale to himself. "Don't care
for publicity, anyway, but they might let the world know a fellow has
come home."

He went for another walk that afternoon, returned to the hotel for
dinner, and decided that, instead of going to a show that evening, he
would prowl around the town.

He walked up to the Park, went over to Broadway, and started down it,
looking at the bright lights again, making his way through the happy,
theater-going throngs toward Times Square. In the enjoyment of the
crowds he forgot, in part, the discourtesies of the day, but he could
not forget them entirely.

Why had the banker acted in such a peculiar fashion? It was not like a
financial institution to refuse a deposit of a round million. Why had
Griffin refused to see him? Why had he as good as been ordered out of
the hotel?

"Coincidence," he told himself. "No reason on earth why such things
should happen unless I am being taken for somebody else--and that
wouldn't be true in the case of Griffin."

He came to a prominent hotel and went into the lobby, looking in vain
for some friend of the old days with whom he could spend an hour or so.
Down in Honduras he had had his million and friends, too; and here, in
his old home, he had nothing but his money. At this hour, down in
Honduras, the band would be playing in the plaza, and society would be
out in force. There would be a soft breeze sweeping down from the hills,
bringing a thousand odors that could not be detected in New York. Here
and there guitars would be tinkling, and men and maidens would be
meeting in the moonlight.

There would be a happy crowd at a certain club he knew, at which he
always had been made welcome. A man could sit out on the veranda and
look over the tumbling sea, and hear the ship's bells strike. Sidney
Prale found himself just a bit homesick for Honduras.

"Got to get over it," he told himself. "No sense in feeling this way.
I'll have a hundred friends before I've been in town a month!"

He went out upon the street, made his way down it, a