the Sixth Avenue Elevated?"

Devar's forehead wrinkled with surprise.

"Hello, there! Hold on! How often have you told me that you had never
seen New York since you were a baby?" he cried.

"Nor have I. Ten years ago, almost to a day, I sailed from Boston to
Europe with my people, and I had never revisited New York after leaving
it in infancy, though both my father and mother hailed from the Bronx."

"There's a cog missing somewhere, or my mental gear-box is out of
shape."

"Not a bit of it. One may learn heaps of things from maps and books."

"Start right in, then, and take an honors course, for behold in me a
map and a book and a high-grade society index for the whole blessed
little island of Manhattan."

"Thank you. What is that slender, column-like structure to the left of
the Singer Building?"

Devar gazed hard at the graceful tower indicated by his friend; then he
laughed.

"Oh, you're uncanny, that's what you are," he said. "You've lived so
long in the East that you've imbibed its tricks of occultism and
necromancy. I suppose you have discovered in some way that that
mushroom has sprung up since the old man sent me to Heidelberg?"

"I guessed it, I admit. It does not figure among the down-town
sky-scrapers in the latest drawing available in London."

"And d'ye mean to tell me that you can pick out any of these
top-notchers merely by studying a picture?"

"Yes. Probably you could do the same if you, like me, felt yourself a
returned exile."

Young Devar awoke at last to the fact that his companion was brimming
over with subdued excitement. Whether this arose from the intense
nationalism of an expatriated American, or from some more subtle
personal cause, he could not determine, but, being young, he was
cynical. He looked at the strong, set face, the well-knit, sinewy
figure, the purposeful hands gripping the fore rail of the promenade
deck; then he growled, with just the least spice of humorous envy:

"Say, Curtis, old man, you ought to have a hell of a good time in New
York!"

"At any rate, I shall not suffer from lack of enthusiasm," came the
quick retort.

Devar felt the spur, and his restless, bird-like eyes condescended to
dwell for a few seconds in silence on the splendid panorama in front.
The _Lusitania_ had passed through the Narrows before the two young men
had strolled along the upper deck of the great steamship to the
'vantage point of a gangway which made a half-circle