details not forthcoming.

All day, just outside the glass doors of the office, Broadway
streamed with people; and here, where the human counter currents
running north and south encountered amid the racket of omnibuses,
carts, carriages, and drays, a vast overflow spread turbulently,
eddying out around the recruiting stations and newspaper offices
which faced the City Park.

Sidewalks swarmed, the park was packed solid. Overhead flags flew
from every flag pole, over every portal, across every alley and
street and square--big nags, little flags, flags of silk, of
cotton, of linen, of bunting, all waving wide in the spring
sunshine, or hanging like great drenched flowers in the winnowing
April rain.

And it was very hard for the young gentlemen in the offices of
Craig & Son to keep their minds on their business.

Berkley had a small room to himself, a chair, a desk, a city map
suspended against the wall, and no clients. Such occasional
commissions as Craig & Son were able to give him constituted his
sole source of income.

He also had every variety of time on his hands--leisure to walk to
the window and walk back again, and then walk all around the
room--leisure to go out and solicit business in a city where
already business was on the edge of chaos and still
sliding--leisure to sit for hours in his chair and reflect upon
anything he chose--leisure to be hungry and satisfy the inclination
with philosophy. He was perfectly at liberty to choose any subject
and think about it. But he spent most of his time in trying to
prevent himself from thinking.

However, from his window, the street views now were usually
interesting; he was an unconvinced spectator of the mob which
started for the _Daily News_ office, hissing, cat-calling, yelling:
"Show your colours!" "Run up your colours!" He saw the mob visit
the _Journal of Commerce_, and then turn on the _Herald_, yelling
insult and bellowing threats which promptly inspired that journal
to execute a political flip-flap that set the entire city smiling.

Stephen, who had conceived a younger man's furtive admiration for
Berkley and his rumoured misdemeanours, often came into his room
when opportunity offered. That morning he chanced in for a moment
and found Berkley at the window chewing the end of a pencil,
perhaps in lieu of the cigar he could no longer afford.

"These are spectacular times," observed the latter, with a gesture
toward the street below. "Observe y