d not shake my fist over the town and vow to return and
conquer it (as penniless writers in fiction generally do) I bowed down
before its power. "It's too much for us," I told my brother. "Two
millions of people--think of it--of course London is larger, but then
London is so far off."

Sleep for us both was but a moment's forgetfulness. At one moment it was
night and at another it was morning. We were awakened by the voice of
the pavement, that sound which Whitman calls "the loud, proud, restive
bass of the streets," and again I leaned forth to listen to the
widespread crescendo roar of the deepening traffic. The air being cool
and clear, the pedestrians stepped out with brisker, braver movement,
and we, too, rose eager to meet the day at the gate of the town.

All day we tramped, absorbing everything that went on in the open.
Having explored the park, viewed the obelisk and visited the zoo, we
wandered up and down Broadway, mooning upon the life of the streets.
Curbstone fights, police manoeuvres, shop-window comedies, building
operations--everything we saw instructed us. We soaked ourselves in the
turbulent rivers of the town with a feeling that we should never see
them again.

We had intended to stay two days but a tragic encounter with a
restaurant bandit so embittered and alarmed us that we fled New York (as
we supposed), forever. At one o'clock, being hungry, very hungry, we
began to look for a cheap eating house, and somewhere in University
Place we came upon a restaurant which looked humble enough to afford a
twenty-five cent dinner (which was our limit of extravagance), and so,
timidly, we ventured in.

A foreign-looking waiter greeted us, and led us to one of a number of
very small tables covered with linen which impressed even Frank's
uncritical eyes with its mussiness. With a feeling of having
inadvertently entered a den of thieves, I wished myself out of it but
lacked the courage to rise and when the man returned and placed upon
the table two glasses and a strange looking bottle with a metal stopper
which had a kind of lever at the side, Frank said, "Hi! Good thing!--I'm
thirsty." Quite against my judgment he fooled around with the lever till
he succeeded in helping himself to some of the liquid with which the
bottle was filled. It was soda water and he drank heartily, although I
was sure it would be extra on the bill.

The food came on slowly, by fits and starts, and the dishes were all so
cold and q