CHAPTER XVIII. IN NEW YORK.

On the following morning the three young men crossed over to the American side of the Niagara and took the train to New York. They had hardly settled down at their hotel when cards began to pour in on them. The names of both of Frederick's traveling companions were well known, and the one which he himself had assumed sounded sufficiently grand to inspire a desire on the part of the hospitable New Yorkers to become acquainted with its possessor. Photographers called the first thing next morning to request the privilege of taking their pictures, and several young ladies who were staying at the same hotel sent up their albums by the waiter with a request for autographs.

A day or two later Frederick, glancing over the papers, caught sight of a paragraph dated from the Falls, which related that a Dutch gentleman who had arrived there and taken up his residence at a hotel on the American side had been missing for several days, and that as he had appeared to be in a very melancholy frame of mind on his arrival it was feared that he had thrown himself into the rapids.

During the time which Frederick and his friends remained in New York they dined out almost every evening, and there is some ground for surprise as to why Frederick should not have availed himself of the opportunity which he had of marrying one of the wealthiest and handsomest women of New York society.

As this portion of “Prado's” career deals with certain personalities which would be easily recognized here, even under a pseudonym, it is better, considering the nature of the circumstances, to dismiss it with this brief allusion.