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 self informed of Barney's movements since he had been in America, but she wished particularly a detailed report upon certain matters which he had observed. Accordingly Barney sat up most of one night writing out replies to his mother's queries; and the next noon he received from her a dictated letter of instruction which sent him, for the first time, to the apartment of Lucas Cullen, Junior, on the outer Drive, where he asked to see Mr. Lucas Cullen, Senior.

Old Lucas proved to be out—"taking a walk, I think, sir," the servant volunteered. Probably he would be back during the afternoon. Barney said he would return at half-past three and he left his name, which Lucas learned when he came back, sometime before three.

"Mr. Loutrelle to see me, eh?" he repeated. "Mr. Loutrelle? Indeed! He'll be back in an hour? Now that's very kind of him. Tell him, if I don't happen to be in precisely at half-past three, that it was very kind of him to call twice to see me in one afternoon." And Lucas passed into the apartment only to refill a pocket with cigars before he went out again to walk along the lake front.

It was a warm afternoon for Chicago in February; the recent snows had thawed away from the ground except in little drip-stained patches shadowed by the tall buildings of "Streeterville." The ice sheath over the breakwater escarpments protecting this invaluable, newly made land also was melting and dripping, and the snow and spray hummocks over the water's edge were breaking up and falling, becoming floes which turned and skewed and sucked and sobbed with the wash of the waves rolling below as the wet wind blew out of the east.