“Eleven minutes and a quarter,” he announced, “and we had to wait for the bridge at that.”

He came up the steps, fanning himself with his slouch hat, and dropped into the chair that Landry had brought for him.

“Upon my word,” he exclaimed, gingerly drawing off his driving gloves, “I’ve no feeling in my fingers at all. Those fellows will pull my hands clean off some day.”

But he was hardly settled in his place before he proposed to send the coachman home, and to take Laura for a drive towards Lincoln Park, and even a little way into the park itself. He promised to have her back within an hour.

“I haven’t any hat,” objected Laura. “I should love to go, but I ran over here tonight without any hat.”