Mr. Monte was partner in a large dry goods house on Broadway, and from what I knew of his habits I judged that I would most likely find him in the store about two o’clock. Accordingly, after lunch I took an omnibus and rode down to the place. It was a massive five story building, with great iron and glass doors, that turned slowly on their hinges, and, closing with a loud bang, shut out the noise and rattle of the great thoroughfare. I stood for a moment confused by the murmur of voices and the tramp of feet, as the hundreds of salesmen and merchants swarmed over every floor of the vast building. The next instant the door sentry approached, and asked whom I wished to see.

”Mr. Monte; is he in?” I replied, feeling for my card.

”Mr. Monte!” he said, looking somewhat surprised. ”What market are you from?”

”North Carolina,” I replied.

”Oh, then,” said he, walking with me to the head of some stairs that led to a gas-lighted apartment below, ”you want to see Mr. Bantam. Ban-tum! Ban-tum!” he called in his loudest tone, accenting the last syllable, and giving it the ”u” sound. ”Mr. Bantam is from your State; he is down stairs now with Col.—— from Raleigh, in flannels. Will be up in a moment. How’s trade in your section?”

”I am not a merchant,” I replied, wondering what Mr. Bantam could be doing with Col.—— in flannel, and if the Col. had forgotten his under garments when leaving home.

At this moment Mr. Bantam, an elderly man, slightly bald, appeared at the bottom of the stairway and called out: ”Who is it, Johnson?”

”A gentleman from your State.”

”All right; I’ll be up in five minutes.”

”Wait a few moments, sir,” said Johnson, going back to his post at the door.

Leaning back against a case of prints, I looked around at this hive of human bees. From floor to floor, from wall to wall, were heaped and piled, like immense breastworks, goods and merchandise of almost every description; case after case of prints, rolls upon rolls of cloths and cassimeres, long brilliant rows of dress goods, boxes of glittering silks, long counters of notions, great heaps of shawls, rugs and blankets; laces, ribbons, and white goods; every department marked by placards with hands pointing to it, and over each another placard with terms of sale: ”30 days,” ”Regular,” or ”Net.”

Everywhere, at every case, around every heap of goods were the salesmen and merchants, bending over fabrics, examining their texture, standing off to get the full effect of the figure; the one class praising and overrating, the other undervaluing and quoting prices from other houses. Just here, at the case next to me, is a fancy young man, with brilliant studs and a flash cravat, a pencil across his mouth like a bit, and his shirt sleeves held up by gutta percha bands, diving head foremost into a box and bringing up a piece of goods, which he exhibits with a slap, as if it were a horse, and winks at a passing comrade, who pinches his arm and says: ”How is it, Saunders?” while the merchant, an old fellow from the country, with a broad felt hat and long coat, who licks his short stump of a pencil whenever he sets down anything in his memorandum book, which has his name in gilt letters on the back, and was sent to him by some advertising house, is bending down to examine it. Over there is a red-faced man, in a Cardigan jacket, showing ——. But here is Mr. Bantam, who reads my card and exclaims:

”Smith! I am delighted to see you. When did you leave the old North State?”

”On Tuesday last,” I replied, rather taken aback by his familiar cordiality.

”Where are you stopping?” he inquired, bending the corners of my card.

”At the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

”That is the reason I missed you last night,” he said; ”I did not go higher than the St. Nicholas. Well, I am very glad you’ve come in. Hope you’ll make all your dry goods bill with us. It’s much the best plan to concentrate on a house, and we’ll be sure to do you good. What department will you look through this evening? I used to sell your father a great many goods.”

I begged his pardon, but informed him that my father had never been a merchant, and that I was not merchandising, but had called in to see Mr. Monte, one of the firm.

”You must excuse me,” he said, familiarly patting me on the back, ”I thought you wanted to buy. You want to see Mr. Monte? I expect you’ll have to go to his house, No.—West 34th street. He hardly ever comes here. Bless your soul, he wouldn’t know what to do if he did come. His money is all the house wants. Give him a new dog cart and a pair of ponies and he’s satisfied.”

”Then he is not much of a business man,” I said, for the want of something else to say, as I took down his address.

”Not in this line. He knows how to get in the green room at a theatre, and is a first rate judge of wine; but his connection with us is simply confined to putting in some money every year, and drawing on it like Old Harry the balance of the time.”

”I am very much obliged,” I said, putting up my pencil; ”I will hurry up to his house, if you think I will find him there.”

”He is probably there now, but he will drive out to the Park at four.”

I was about to leave, when a tall, elderly man approached Mr. Bantam, and said, deferentially,

”Dinkle, of your State, wants Domestics on sixty days. Shall I sell him?”

”I’ll go see him,” said Bantam, turning off; ”Good bye, Mr. Smith. Call in again if you have leisure.”

The tall, elderly man was about to follow him, when a sudden recollection of his face flashed upon me, and I caught his arm.

”Excuse me, but isn’t this Mr. Marshman?”

”It is, sir,” he replied, turning around to me again.

”My name is Smith, sir,” I said, offering him my hand; ”we met at Saratoga.”

”I remember. How have you been?” he answered coldly, taking my hand without cordiality, while a flush I could not understand came over his face.

”You are connected with this house?” I asked; thinking, of course, that he was a partner.

”Only as a salesman,” he said bitterly, and then added, after a pause, ”It is not worth while being ashamed of it. Lillian’s infernal extravagance ruined me, and I was compelled to do something.”

I could make no reply, and there was a pause of some seconds, when he continued, with increasing volubility, as all men do when speaking of their misfortunes:

”Lillian’s old uncle, from whom we expected a great deal, died insolvent. I spent half of what I had in my last political contest, and was defeated by the——treachery of my friends. Still, after that we had enough to have lived comfortably, by economizing a little; but Lillian would have her brown stone and her carriage, her silks and her laces. and now she has to take the street cars if she rides at all, and that isn’t often. I could stand it all better if she wouldn’t cut up so, and mope about her poverty, as she calls it. She turns up her nose at the neighborhood because we’ve had to come down to Bleecker street. She spends half her time crying and looking over old finery, and talking of better days. She puts all sorts of foolish notions into our little girl’s head, and makes her continually beg me for things I have not the money to buy. I would ask you to call and see us, but ‘twould not be pleasant for you, and only make her worse. It is improper, I know, for me to talk thus to a comparative stranger, but I am full of bitterness when I think of Lillian’s conduct, and as you used to know her I have been communicative. Pardon me. Yonder’s Mr. Bantam. I must go back to my customers. Good day! But take this piece of advice: don’t marry a belle,” he added, over his shoulder, as he walked off.

As I stood on the sidewalk to hail an omnibus, my sympathy turned from him to poor Lillian, reduced to poverty, and her very sighs and tears ridiculed, to any one who might listen, by her unfeeling husband.

When I knocked at No.—West Thirty-fourth street a servant in livery appeared and took up my card. I waited a few moments in a very handsome parlor, when he returned and requested me to walk up stairs. Going up with him I was ushered into a sitting room furnished with cosy magnificence, that is, with a splendid Moquette carpet, on which you were not afraid to tread; velvet divans, on which you did not hesitate to recline; a rosewood table, on which an inkstand and pens were scattered; a marble mantel, with a half-smoked cigar tossed on it, an etagere with a smoking cap, a broken meerschaum, and a Sevres vase of Latakia, perched among articles of rarest vertu. With my first glance around the apartment Monte came in through a folding door from his dressing room, wiping his hands on a Russian towel, and giving me one to shake that was still damp.

”Smith! old fellow, I am devilish glad to see you. When did you arrive? We had a gay time at Saratoga that season, didn’t we! Where the deuce have you kept yourself ever since? Sit down.”

”I thought you were aware, Monte,” I said, adopting his free and easy manner, and lolling carelessly down in an arm chair, ”that we had had a little unpleasantness down our way. I’ve been in camp four years.”

”Ah, yes,” he said, slipping his arm through the coat his attendant held ready for him, ”I had overlooked that. So they made a soldier of you, did they—powder, blood and all? I was captain of a company our fellows here got up, but when they went down South I resigned. If the—— States wanted to secede I had no idea of getting my brains blown out to prevent them.”

”We were defending our country, you know, and, of course, had to fight,” I remarked, smiling at his idea of patriotism.

”I suppose so,” he said, sitting down near me and arranging his cuffs; then looking up at his servant, who stood waiting, ”James, tell Thomas to put the bay colt to the wagon; I will drive to Harlem this afternoon. By the way, Smith,” he continued, when the man had left the room, ”what ever became of that devil of a beauty that flirted with us all, and with whom you left the Springs?”

An angry reply rose to my lips at hearing him speak so of Carlotta, but knowing that it would defeat the object of my visit, I restrained myself, and replied ”that she had been living down South during the war, but that I understood she was soon to return to Cuba.”

There was a short silence, and I was wondering how to get at any information in regard to Lulie, when he put up his eye-glass and looked at me again.

”You’ve changed a great deal, Smith. I should never have recognized you without your card.”

It was just the turn I wanted, and I replied:

”I saw you last night at the opera and remembered your face immediately. But, Monte, apropos of beauty, who was the lady you were with? She drew my attention entirely from the stage.”

”Ah!” he said, drawing his eye into the least perceptible wink, ”She was worth a gaze, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t tell every one, but you are a transient visitor: that was La Belle Louise. Half of New York is crazy about her—that is, you know, the b’hoys.”

”Not demi-monde?” I asked, looking knowing.

”It was daring in me, wasn’t it?” he went on, without heeding my remark. ”But she wanted to go and I promised to carry her. Oh! but I shall have to lie about it to the ladies. I can cheat scandal out of the morsel if some fellow who knew her don’t blow on me to his mother, and she let it out to her set. Confound it, though, who cares?”

”Has she many admirers?” I asked.

”Many seek the honor of her acquaintance, but I believe I am the favored one. I’ll vow it flattens that deucedly though to keep her in diamonds,” he said, drawing from his pocket a mother of pearl portemonnaie.

”I’d like to get a peep at her myself; just a peep, Monte. Where does she reside?” I said, taking out a card.

”Oh, I don’t mind telling you. But it’s no use, she won’t see you.”

”La Belle Louise. Number what?” I asked, pretending to write.

”She is at Madame Dubourg’s, 42d street, if you wish to know,” he said, somewhat coldly, as if he thought me impertinent.

Quick as thought ‘twas on my card, and then I said, smiling:

”Oh, well, I was only jesting; I will leave day after tomorrow. But tell me, Monte, something of my old acquaintance, Miss Finnock.”

”Little Saph.!” he said, regaining his good humor. ”She is up the Hudson living with her brother, who married that horrid Miss Stelway. You remember them?”

”Very well, but is Miss Finnock not married yet?”

”No, of course not; who would marry such a bundle of sentiment? She often boasts of you, though, as the young Carolinian she flirted with.”

”I met Mr. Marshman very unexpectedly down at your store to-day,” I said, not caring to correct little Miss Finnock’s boast.

”Marshman? Yes, he’s selling there for us on a small salary—the best we could give him though. The old fellow got beaten, took to his cups and went to the bad very fast. They say his wife has to work hard to support herself and child, while he drinks up what he gets at our house. My mother sends them supplies very often, though she has not visited them, you know, since they left the top.”

”Have you a check book here?” I asked, with a sudden resolution.

”Yes,” he replied, handing me one from his escritoire.

”Will you do me the favor to get that to Mrs. Marshman,” I said, filling up the check for a good round sum and giving it to him. ”Please draw the money and send it to her so that my name will not be known in the matter, and do not let Marshman touch any of it.”

”James shall attend to it to-morrow. But stay and dine with me. We’ll drive out to Harlem, and get back to dinner at six.”

”Thanks, I must return to my hotel, as I have an engagement there. Dine with me to-morrow. I am at the Fifth Avenue.”

”Would be happy. The Sillery’s very fine there, but I dine our Club on my yacht to-morrow. Speaking of La Belle Louise,” he continued, following me down to the door, ”Madame Dubourg told me she gets letters from North Carolina, and that she is continually sending money to Italy to complete a monument to go over some poor devil of a deserter from the rebel army, who was killed down there. Did you ever hear of her before?”

”La Belle Louise? I never heard the name till you mentioned it,” I said.

”I supposed it was a mistake. Good day.”

”Lulie, I have found you at last,” I murmured, as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue to the hotel. ”God grant we may save you!”