he work
is going on at my room in the Bartholomew Buildings, only a few steps
from here." (According to Tiffles, the Bartholomew Buildings were only a
few steps from anywhere, when he wanted to take anybody to them.)
"Patching will object to bringing in a stranger; but I can pass you off
as a capitalist, who thinks of taking an interest in the panorama. Good
joke, that!"

Marcus drew back a little at the joke; but Wesley Tiffles had proved so
great a relief to his low spirits, that he determined to keep on taking
him, and expressed his ardent desire to see the panorama.

The couple, arm in arm, sauntered into Broadway, and down that
thoroughfare. Tiffles nodded to a great many acquaintances, and Wilkeson
to a very few. People whom Tiffles did not know personally, he had short
biographies of, and he entertained Marcus with an incessant string of
anecdotes and memoranda of passers by. The walk was leisurely and
uninterrupted, with two exceptions, when Wesley Tiffles broke suddenly
from his companion, rushed into the entry of a photographic
establishment, and examined numerous square feet of show portraits with
profound interest. Marcus explained these impulsive movements on the
supposition that Tiffles sought to escape from approaching duns. He
noticed that that individual, while observing people who streamed by him
on either side, kept one eye, as it were, about a block and a half
ahead. In some parts of the world, Marcus might have objected to walking
publicly with a man of such an eccentric demeanor. But he was well aware
that, in New York, a citizen's reputation is not in the least degree
affected by the company that he keeps.

They soon arrived at the Bartholomew Buildings--a rickety five-story
edifice, which had been altered from a hotel to a nest of private
offices. The basement was a restaurant, the first floor a dry goods
store, and thence to the roof there was a small Babel of trades and
professions known and unknown. No census taker had ever booked all the
businesses and all the names under that comprehensive roof.

In the upper story of this building, at the end of a long, hall, the
floor of which was hollowed in places by the feet of half a century, was
the room, or office, as he called it, of Mr. Wesley Tiffles. There was
no number, or sign, on the door, but only a card bearing the
inscription, in a bold hand, "Back in five minutes." Mr. Tiffles always
put out this standing announcement whenever he had o