Then night came and blotted these out, and the moon rose
and music played, and throngs of officers and students and towns-people
sat through a long-drawn evening before the coffee-houses round-about.
High towards the stars towered the columns and pediments of a vast
official structure, whose broken sky-line sawed the heavens, and whose
varied cornices and ledges were disjointed by deep and perplexing
shadows. On each side of the great portal which opened through the
pillared arcade there was stationed a mounted cuirassier, and above it
there appeared in large letters--
"Marshall & Belden," said Truesdale, suddenly emerging from his reverie.
He sprang lightly over the muddy gutter and found a foothold on the damp
flagging. "Pshaw!" he said, rather ruefully; "in a moment more she would
have come to meet me."
He looked up at the building before him. "Well, really, they've made
quite a decent affair of it. But what are they doing to the sign? Oh, I
see: putting 'The' to the front of it, and 'Co.' to the back. That ladder
looks rather shaky. The Marshall & Belden Co.' Perhaps it would be civil
of me to call on the new concern--seeing that I have chanced their way."
Truesdale picked his way choicely through the office, with the urbane
affectation of never having seen the place before. One or two of the
clerks recognized him, and a hurried word, passed from desk to desk,
effected an immediate establishment of his identity throughout the room.
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