"There," said he, as he deposited his wife and his bags in a seat in the
huge waiting-room; "now you stay right here, an' don't you move. I'm
goin' to find out about hotels and things."
He was gone so long that she was nearly fainting from fright before she
spied his dear form coming toward her. His thin, plain face looked
wonderfully beautiful to her, and she almost hugged him right before all
those people.
"Well, I've got a hotel all right; but I hain't been here for so long
I've kinder forgot about the streets, so the man said we'd better have a
team to take us there." And he picked up the bags and trudged off,
closely followed by Emily.
His shrewd Yankee wit carried him safely through a bargain with the
driver, and they were soon jolting and rumbling along to their
destination. He had asked the man behind the news-stand about a hotel,
casually mentioning that he had money--plenty of it--and wanted a "bang-
up good place." The spirit of mischief had entered the heart of the
news-man, and he had given Reuben the name of one of the very highest-
priced, most luxurious hotels in the city.
As the carriage stopped, Reuben marched boldly up the broad steps and
entered the palatial office, with Emily close at his heels.
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