home, sir?" queried the coachman, gravely.
"Well, yes, John, perhaps you had."

There is another picture in my early rising experience that I wish was
as simply and honestly ludicrous. It was at a time when the moral
sentiment of the metropolis, expressed through ordinance and special
legislation, had declared itself against a certain form of "variety"
entertainment, and had, as usual, proceeded against the performers, and
not the people who encouraged them. I remember, one frosty morning, to
have encountered in Washington Park my honest friend Sergeant X. and
Roundsman 9999 conveying a party of these derelicts to the station.
One of the women, evidently, had not had time to change her apparel,
and had thinly disguised the flowing robe and loose cestus of Venus
under a ragged "waterproof"; while the other, who had doubtless posed
for Mercury, hid her shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and changed her
winged sandals for a pair of "arctics." Their rouged faces were
streaked and stained with tears. The man who was with them, the male
of their species, had but hastily washed himself of his Ethiopian
presentment, and was still black behind the ears; while an exaggerated
shirt collar and frilled shirt made his occasional indignant profanity
irresistibly ludicrous. So they fared on over the glittering snow,
against the rosy sunlight of the square, the gray front of the
University building, with a few twittering sparrows in the foreground,
beside the two policemen, quiet and impassive as fate. I could not help
thinking of the distinguished A., the most fashionable B., the wealthy
and respectable C., the sentimental D., and the man of the world E.,
who were present at the performance, whose distinguished patronage had
called it into life, and who were then resting quietly in their beds,
while these haggard servants of their pleasaunce were haled over the
snow to punishment and ignominy.

Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture of that same season.
It was early; so early that the cross of Grace Church had, when I
looked up, just caught the morning sun, and for a moment flamed like a
crusader's symbol. And then the grace and glory of that exquisite
spire became slowly visible. Fret by fret the sunlight stole slowly
down, quivering and dropping from each, until at last the whole church
beamed in rosy radiance. Up and down the long avenue the street lay in
shadow; by some strange trick of the atmosphere the sun seemed