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 BOOK IV

I

Lonpon was supposed to be empty. It is a consoling fiction which still obtains among a certain section of the vast community, especially that section which annually migrates to the country house or the continental watering place, where the evil effects of general intemperance are supposed to receive a_ salutary check. Carey Vermont found that there were still a few millions left in the great metropolis who seemed totally oblivious of the fact that they did not count, or that a certain part of the more fashionable quarter was more or less deserted. Freed of that self-sufficient section London was quite an agreeable desert, which he haunted with most amazing persistency.

To be sure, a regular habitué of the Park would have found its desolation heartbreaking. The numerous empty chairs seemed to grin