yards--gone, so it seems, for ever.

And in place of him this--what is it they call it?--taxi, with a
clean-shaven cut-throat steering it. "Get in," he says, Just that. He
doesn't offer to help me or lift my satchel. All right, young man, I'm
crawling in.

That's the machine that marks it, eh? I suppose they have them rigged up
so they can punch up anything they like. I thought so--he hits it up to
fifty cents before we start. But I saw him do it. Well, I can stand for
it this time. I'll not be caught in one of these again.

The hotel? All right, I'm getting out. My hotel? But what is it they
have done to it? They must have added ten stories to it. It reaches
to the sky. But I'll not try to look to the top of it. Not with this
satchel in my hand: no, sir! I'll wait till I'm safe inside. In there
I'll feel all right. They'll know me in there. They'll remember right
away my visit in the fall of '86. They won't easily have forgotten
that big dinner I gave--nine people at a dollar fifty a plate, with the
cigars extra. The clerk will remember _me_, all right.

Know me? Not they. The _clerk_ know me! How could he? For it seems now
there isn't any clerk, or not as there used to be. They have subdivided
him somehow into five or six. There is a man behind a desk, a majestic
sort of man, waving his hand. It would be sheer madness to claim
acquaintance with him. There is another with a great book, adjusting
cards in it; and another, behind glass labelled "Cashier," and busy as
a bank; there are two with mail and telegrams. They are all too busy to
know me.

Shall I sneak up near to them, keeping my satchel in my hand? I wonder,
do they _see_ me? _Can_ they see me, a mere thing like me? I am within
ten feet of them, but I am certain that they cannot see me. I am, and I
feel it, absolutely invisible.

Ha! One has seen me. He turns to me, or rather he rounds upon me, with
the words "Well, sir?" That, and nothing else, sharp and hard. There is
none of the ancient kindly pretence of knowing my name, no reaching
out a welcome hand and calling me Mr. Er--Er--till he has read my name
upside down while I am writing it and can address me as a familiar
friend. No friendly questioning about the crops in my part of the
country. The crops, forsooth! What do these young men know about crops?

A room? Had I any reservation? Any which? Any reservation. Oh, I see,
had I written down from home to say that I was coming? No, I had not
because