Tom wondered how Crailey would feel and what he would think about himself while he was changing his clothes, but he remembered his partner's extraordinary powers of mental adjustment--and for the first time in his life Vanrevel made no allowance for the other's temperament, and there came to him a moment when he felt that he could almost dislike Crailey Gray.
At all events, he would go out until Crailey had come and left again, for he had no desire to behold the masquerader's return.

So he exchanged his dressing-gown for a coat, fastened his collar, and had begun to arrange his cravat at the mirror, when, suddenly, the voice of the old negress seemed to sound close beside him in the room.
"He's settin' dah--waitin'!" The cravat was never tied; Tom's hands dropped to his sides as he started back from the staring face in the mirror.

Robert Carewe was waiting--and Crailey---- All at once there was but one vital necessity in the world for Tom Vanrevel, that was to find Crailey; he must go to Crailey--even in Carewe's own house--he must go to Crailey! He dashed down the stairs and into the street.

The people were making a great uproar in front of the hotel, exploding bombs, firing muskets in the air, sending up rockets; and rapidly crossing the outskirts of the crowd, he passed into Carewe Street, unnoticed.

Here the detonations were not so deafening, though the little steamboat at the wharf was contributing to the confusion with all in her power, screeching simultaneously approval of the celebration and her last signals of departure.
At the first corner Tom had no more than left the sidewalk when he came within a foot of being ridden down by two horsemen who rode at so desperate a gallop that (the sound of their hoof-beats being lost in the uproar from Main Street) they were upon him before he was aware of them.
He leaped back with an angry shout to know who they were that they rode so wildly.