ter
7.30; just leave word where you may be about eleven."

No further protest by Curtis was possible, because Devar's present
behavior was of the whirlwind order. He seemed to own as many trunks
as cousins, and a lantern-jawed Customs official was gloating over them
already. Perhaps Curtis felt a faint whiff of surprise that his young
friend had not introduced him to his relatives, but it vanished
instantly. Steamer acquaintance is a nebulous thing at the best; in
that respect, the land is more unstable than the sea.

At last, the stranger in his own country was consigned to a porter, his
two steamer trunks, a kit-bag, a suit-case, and a bundle of worn golf
clubs were placed on a taxi, and a breath of clean, cold air blew in on
his face as the vehicle hurried along West Street, that broad and
exceedingly useful thoroughfare which New York has finally wrested from
its waterside slums.

The chief city of America is fortunate in the fact that a noble harbor
presents her in full regalia to the voyager from Europe. That
favorable first impression, unattainable by the majority of the world's
capitals, is never lost, and now it enabled Curtis to disregard the
garish ugliness of the avenues and streets glimpsed during a quick run
to the center of the town. For one thing, he realized how the mere
propinquity of docks and wharves infects entire districts with the
happy-go-lucky carelessness of Jack ashore; for another, he knew what
was coming.

Or he fancied that he knew, a state of mind which, particularly in New
York, produces brain storms. His first shock came when the taxi drew
up in front of a narrow-fronted, exceedingly tall building, equipped
with revolving doors, while a hall-porter, dressed like an archduke,
peered through the window and inquired severely:

"Have you reserved a room, sir?"

Yes, this was the Central Hotel, rebuilt, gone skyward, in full cry
after its more pretentious _a la carte_ neighbors, and the hall-porter
was pained by the mere suspicion that the fact was not accepted of all
the world of travel.

Although the newcomer confessed that he had not made any reservation of
rooms, the Archduke graciously permitted him to alight--indeed, quelled
an incipient rebellion on Curtis's part by ordering a couple of negroes
to disappear with most of the baggage. So Curtis announced meekly to a
super-clerk that he wanted a room with a bathroom, and was allowed to
register. As in a dream, he signed "