ronged with fantastic soldiery and fox-eyed
contractors, filled already with new faces--faces of Western born,
Yankee born, foreign born; stupid faces, crafty faces, hard faces,
bedizened faces--it was into the streets of such a city that
Berkley sauntered twice a day to and fro from his office,
regretting only that his means did not permit him to go to the
devil like a gentleman.

And one day, out of the hurly-burly, and against all laws of
probability and finance, an incredible letter was handed to him.
And he read it, standing by his window, and calmly realised that he
was now no longer penniless.

Some inspired idiot had become a credulous market for his
apparently unmarketable securities. Who this person was his
brokers did not say; but, whoever it was, had bought every rotten
share he held; and there was money for him in the world to help him
out of it.

As he stood there, the letter in his hands, drums sounded across
the street, and Stephen came in from the outer office.

"Another regiment," he said. "Do you know where they come from?"

Berkley shook his head, and they went to the windows; below them
surged the flood of dead wood driven before the oncoming
waves--haggard men, ragged men, small boys, darkies, Bowery b'hoys,
stray red-shirted firemen, then the police, then solid double ranks
of drums battered by flashing, brass-bound drumsticks, then line
after line of blue and steel, steadily flowing through the streets
and away, away into the unknown.

"How young they are!" muttered Farren, the gray-haired cashier,
standing behind Stephen's shoulders. "God bless me, they're
children!"

"It's a Vermont regiment," said Berkley; "they're filing out of the
Park Barracks. What a lot of hawk-nosed, hatchet-faced,
turkey-necked cow milkers!--all heroes, too, Steve. You can tell
that because they're in uniform and carry guns."

Stephen watched the lank troops, fascinated by the long, silent,
almost gliding stride of officers and men loaded down with
knapsack, blanket, and canteen, their caps pushed high on their red
and sweating foreheads. There was a halt; big hands, big red
knuckles, big feet, and the delicate curve of the hawk's beak
outlining every Yankee nose, queer, humourous, restless glances
sweeping Gotham streets and windows where Gotham crowded to gaze
back at the halted youngsters in blue; then a far tenor cry, nasal
commands, thin voices penetrating from out of the crowded distance;
a sudd