ing to the structure on which you are standing. These strands,
when the moon shines just right, partly obscured and lying low in the
south, are like the filmy threads of a monster cobweb spun in the sky.

Just as you are entranced with this fairy picture, and are wondering
where the big spider must be, you look ahead of you on the promenade,
and, as if coming from some hidden passage, you see a cloud of vapor.
There is something approaching, surely. You wonder at once if the spider
that could have strung this web in the air would have hot breath, and it
is not until you hear a noise and are conscious that a train of cars has
passed you that you begin to realize that it really isn't a spider
chasing along one of the paths of his web after you, in the hope of
catching you and making of you a very choice morsel of a fly.

For nearly five years I have been going over the Brooklyn Bridge night
and day, and it seems to me that every few days I see something in the
arrangement of the details of the structure that I never saw before. It
is a constant delight to watch the bridge under the varying conditions
that affect it from day to day. One can see, for example, how carefully
the wires for the electric lights are strung. They are almost within
reach of any person walking across the structure, and yet there is
absolutely no danger from them. It is interesting to watch the bracing
of the structure, how the big and little stays slope now this way and
that, and to note just where they change in their slanting direction. It
is also interesting at the dead of night to see the workmen splice one
of the car cables, taking out some broken strand and weaving in another.

I always like to see the workmen paint these cables. The men walk along
the tracks with pots of red paint in their hands. They have great mitts
of lamb's wool on their hands, and they use these for brushes. They dip
their hands in the paint, and then run them along the cables until the
paint is transferred from the hands to the cable. It is dangerous work,
for not only must the workmen guard against falling between the ties to
the water below, but they must face the danger of being run over, for
every minute a train of cars comes along.

I like to see the care that is taken of the stations. Every Sunday
morning at two o'clock the workmen get out a hose and wash the
terminals, just as sailors wash the decks of a ship. Once every four
years the structure is painted in e