ice we could not complain.

No sooner had the porter left us than we both stretched out on the bed,
in such relief and ecstasy of returning confidence as only weary youth
and honest poverty can know.--It was heavenly sweet, this sense of
safety in the heart of a tempest of human passion but as we rested, our
hunger to explore returned. "Time is passing. We shall probably never
see New York again," I argued, "and besides our bags are now safely
_cached_. Let's go out and see how the city looks by night."

To this Franklin agreed, and forth we went into the Square, rejoicing in
our freedom from those accursed bags.

Here for the first time, I observed the electric light shadows, so
clear-cut, so marvellous. The park was lighted by several sputtering,
sizzling arc-lamps, and their rays striking down through the trees,
flung upon the pavement a wavering, exquisite tracery of sharply
defined, purple-black leaves and branches. This was, indeed, an entirely
new effect in our old world and to my mind its wonder surpassed nature.
It was as if I had suddenly been translated to some realm of magic art.

Where we dined I cannot say, probably we ate a doughnut at some lunch
counter but I am glad to remember that we got as far as Madison
Square--which was like discovering another and still more enchanting
island of romance. To us the Fifth Avenue Hotel was a great and historic
building, for in it Grant and Sherman and Lincoln and Greeley had often
registered.

Ah, what a night that was! I did not expend a dollar, not even a
quarter, but I would give half of all I now own for the sensitive heart,
the absorbent brain I then possessed. Each form, each shadow was a
miracle. Romance and terror and delight peopled every dusky side street.

Submerged in the wondrous, drenched with the spray of this measureless
ocean of human life, we wandered on and on till overborne nature called
a halt. It was ten o'clock and prudence as well as weariness advised
retreat. Decisively, yet with a feeling that we would never again glow
beneath the lights of this radiant city, I led the way back to our
half-rate bed in the Union Square Hungarian hotel.

It is worth recording that on reaching our room, we opened our small
window and leaning out, gazed away over the park, what time the tumult
and the thunder and the shouting died into a low, continuous roar. The
poetry and the majesty of the city lost nothing of its power under the
moon.

Although I di