Atherton stood on the steps of the café watching Mills' departure until his friend's broad back and sturdy shoulders were swallowed up in the crowd; then, descending to the street, he strolled leisurely away in the opposite direction. But although, as he had just said to Mills, Blagden's enthusiasm had inspired him, he now concluded that it was not at this particular moment that he desired adventure, for there is a limit to human endurance, and the experiences of the day had left him exhausted both in body and mind. So that in spite of Blagden's counsel as to keeping constantly on the alert, he threaded his way through the throng absent-mindedly, his thoughts, through force of long habit, reverting instinctively to the ticker, whose sudden plunge downward had proved so ruinous to all his hopes and plans.
At length, however, as he turned aside from the main thoroughfare, he was roused from his abstraction by the sight of an automobile standing motionless at the curb, while the chauffeur cranked away manfully, but without result, and a tall, well-built man of middle age, evidently the owner of the car, stood looking on with a frown upon his brow. The whole affair was commonplace enough, and presumably Atherton would not have given it a second thought, if it had not been for the girl who stood at the man's side; but at the sight of her, her beauty and the charm of her radiant youth suddenly made him forget everything else in the world, and under the pretense of looking into a neighboring window, he lingered for the pure delight of stealing an occasional glance at her, already determined that as soon as the car took its departure he would contrive to note its number, so that he might learn its owner's name.
But a still better opportunity was to present itself, for presently there came an explosion, not from the car but from its owner. "That will do," he said crisply. "You can't run an automobile, and never could. You're discharged. Go to the garage and tell them to send for the car, and come out to-morrow for your pay and your clothes."
Without protest, and almost as if glad to escape thus easily, the chauffeur vanished around the corner, and immediately Atherton, lover and master of motors, saw the Goddess of Adventure beckoning to him alluringly. At once he stepped forward, and asked, "Beg pardon, but may I help you?"