Gray know of this?" asked the consul after a pause.

The man stared.

"Not from me, sir. You see it was nothin' to him, and I didn't care
talking much about the Skyscraper. It was hushed up in the papers. You
won't go back on me, sir?"

"You don't know what became of the passenger?"

"No! But he was a Scotchman, and they're bound to fall on their feet
somehow!"

III.

The December fog that overhung St. Kentigern had thinned sufficiently to
permit the passage of a few large snowflakes, soiled in their descent,
until in color and consistency they spotted the steps of the Consulate
and the umbrellas of the passers-by like sprinklings of gray mortar.
Nevertheless the consul thought the streets preferable to the persistent
gloom of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. Kentigern
strode sturdily past him in the lightest covert coats; collegiate St.
Kentigern fluttered by in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs
that defended his more exotic blood; and the bare red feet of a few
factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders were draped and hooded
in thick shawls, filled him with a keen sense of his effeminacy.
Everything of earth, air, and sky, and even the faces of those he looked
upon, seemed to be set in the hard, patient endurance of the race.
Everywhere on that dismal day, he fancied he could see this energy
without restlessness, this earnestness without geniality, all grimly set
against the hard environment of circumstance and weather.

The consul turned into one of the main arteries of St. Kentigern, a wide
street that, however, began and ended inconsequently, and with half a
dozen social phases in as many blocks. Here the snow ceased, the fog
thickened suddenly with the waning day, and the consul found himself
isolated and cut off on a block which he did not remember, with the
clatter of an invisible tramway in his ears. It was a block of small
houses with smaller shop-fronts. The one immediately before him seemed
to be an optician's, but the dimly lighted windows also displayed the
pathetic reinforcement of a few watches, cheap jewelry on cards, and
several cairngorm brooches and pins set in silver. It occurred to him
that he wanted a new watch crystal, and that he would procure it here
and inquire his way. Opening the door he perceived that there was no one
in the shop, but from behind the counter another open door disclosed
a neat sitting-room, so close to the street that it gave