romantic in bright gowns, and gleaming shoulders, and handsome faces
seen amid these bizarre surroundings. And then, of course, there is
always the cooking, which leaves nothing to be desired.

I was in the right mood to-night for the enjoyment of the place, and
I ambled through the dinner in a fashion so leisurely and trifled so
long over coffee and cigarette that it was far past ten o'clock when
I came out again into Forty-second Street. After an instant's
hesitation, I decided to walk home, and turned back toward Broadway,
already filling with the after-theatre crowd.

Often as I have seen it, Broadway at night is still a fascinating
place to me, with its blazing signs, its changing crowds, its
clanging street traffic, its bright shop-windows. Grady was right in
saying that "gay Paree" had nothing like it; nor has any other city
that I know. It is, indeed, unique and thoroughly American; and I
walked along it that night in the most leisurely fashion, savouring
it to the full; pausing, now and then, for a glance at a shop-window,
and stopping at the Hoffman House--now denuded, alas! of its
Bouguereau--to replenish my supply of cigarettes.

Reaching Madison Square, at last, I walked out under the trees, as I
almost always do, to have a look at the Flatiron Building, white
against the sky. Then I glanced up at the Metropolitan tower, higher
but far less romantic in appearance, and saw by the big illuminated
clock that it was nearly half-past eleven.

I crossed back over Broadway, at last, and turned down Twenty-third
Street in the direction of the Marathon, when, just at the corner, I
came face to face with three men as they swung around the corner in