Mr. Larcher, though he found the place congenial enough, was rather for
the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the
way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old
woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who
was on chaffing and money-lending terms with so much talent in the shape
of her customers, might know of Murray Davenport; or, indeed, as he had
whispered to Larcher, that the illustrator might be one of the crowd in
the restaurant at that very moment. But the proprietress knew no such
person, a fact which seemed to rate him very low in her estimation and
somewhat high in Mr. Tompkins's. The two young men thereupon hastened to
board a car going up Sixth Avenue. Being set down near Greeley Square,
they went into a drug-store and opened the directory.
"Here's a Murray Davenport, all right enough," said Tompkins, "but he's
a playwright."
"Probably the same," replied Larcher, remembering that his man had
something to do with theatres. "He's a gentleman of many professions,
let's see the address."
It was a number and street in the same part of the town with Larcher's
abode, but east of Madison Avenue, while his own was west of Fifth. But
now his way was to the residence of Barry Tompkins, which proved to be a
shabby room on the fifth floor of an old building on Broadway; a room
serving as Mr. Tompkins's sleeping-chamber by night, and his law office
by day.
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