Mr. Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession.  If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the Q. Y. and Z. Railroad Company.  It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind.  Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.”

“It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, Mr. Bolder,” I said, after I had read the despatch.  “This has the sound, to me, of a genuine case.  Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything?  I know that these lapses of memory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home.”

“Oh, gammon and jalap!” said Mr. Bolder.  “It’s larks they’re after.  There’s too much education nowadays.  Men know about aphasia, and they use it for an excuse.  The women are wise, too.  When it’s all over they look you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and say:  ’He hypnotized me.’”

Thus Mr. Bolder diverted, but did not aid, me with his comments and philosophy.

We arrived in New York about ten at night.  I rode in a cab to a hotel, and I wrote my name “Edward Pinkhammer” in the register.  As I did so I felt pervade me a splendid, wild, intoxicating buoyancy—­a sense of unlimited freedom, of newly attained possibilities.  I was just born into the world.  The old fetters—­whatever they had been—­were stricken from my hands and feet.  The future lay before me a clear road such as an infant enters, and I could set out upon it equipped with a man’s learning and experience.

I thought the hotel clerk looked at me five seconds too long.  I had no baggage.

“The Druggists’ Convention,” I said.  “My trunk has somehow failed to arrive.”  I drew out a roll of money.

“Ah!” said he, showing an auriferous tooth, “we have quite a number of the Western delegates stopping here.”  He struck a bell for the boy.

I endeavored to give color to my role.

“There is an important movement on foot among us Westerners,” I said, “in regard to a recommendation to the convention that the bottles containing the tartrate of antimony and potash, and the tartrate of sodium and potash be kept in a contiguous position on the shelf.”

“Gentleman to three-fourteen,” said the clerk, hastily.  I was whisked away to my room.

The next day I bought a trunk and clothing, and began to live the life of Edward Pinkhammer.  I did not tax my brain with endeavors to solve problems of the past.

It was a piquant and sparkling cup that the great island city held up to my lips.  I drank of it gratefully.  The keys of Manhattan belong to him who is able to bear them.  You must be either the city’s guest or its victim.