ibliography of Walt Whitman, and all
that sort of thing; and in our mutual excitement Endymion whisked
too swiftly round a corner and caught his jacket on a sharp
door-latch and tore it. Inquiring at Astor Place's biggest
department store as to where we could get it mended, they told us to
go to "Mr. Wright the weaver" on the sixth floor of Bible House, and
we did so. On our way back, avoiding the ancient wire rope elevator
(we know only one other lift so delightfully mid-Victorian, viz.,
one in Boston, that takes you upstairs to see Edwin Edgett, the
gentle-hearted literary editor of the Boston _Transcript_), we
walked down the stairs, peeping into doorways in great curiosity.
The whole building breathed a dusky and serene quaintness that
pricks the imagination. It is a bit like the shop in Edinburgh (on
the corner of the Leith Walk and Antigua Street, if we remember)
that R.L.S. described in "A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured"--"it
was dark and smelt of Bibles." We looked in at the entrance to the
offices of the _Christian Herald_. The Bowling Green thought that
what he saw was two young ladies in close and animated converse; but
Endymion insisted that it was one young lady doing her hair in front
of a large mirror. "Quite a pretty little picture," said Endymion.
We argued about this as we went down the stairs. Finally we went
back to make sure. Endymion was right. Even in the darkness of Bible
House, we agreed, romance holds sway. And then we found a book shop
on the ground floor of Bible House. One of our discoveries there was
"Little Mr. Bouncer," by Cuthbert Bede--a companion volume to "Mr.
Verdant Green."

But Dick Steele's idea of writing his column from different taverns
round the city is rather gaining ground in our affections. There
would be no more exciting way of spending a fortnight or so than in
taking a walking tour through the forests of New York, camping
for the night wherever we happened to find ourself at dark,
Adam-and-Evesdropping as we went, and giving the nearest small boy
fifty cents to take our copy down to the managing editor. Some of
our enterprising clients, who are not habitual commuters and who
live in a state of single cussedness, might try it some time.

The only thing we missed at McSorley's, we might add, was the
old-time plate of onions. But then we were not there at lunch time,
and the pungent fruit may have been hidden away in the famous tall
ice box. Hutchins Hapgood once said