We left the house, and Indiman tossed a penny into the air.
"Broadway, heads; Fourth Avenue, tails." Tails it was.

Arrived at Fourth Avenue, we stood waiting for a car. The first
that came along was on its way up-town and we boarded it.

"Was it you who asked for a cross-town transfer at Twenty-ninth?"
inquired the conductor of Indiman a few minutes later, and Indiman
nodded assent and took the transfer slips.

At Eighth Avenue the cross-town car was blocked by a stalled coal-
cart. We alighted and passively awaited further directions from our
esoteric guide. Quite an amusing game for a dull, rainy afternoon,
and I felt grateful to Indiman for its invention.

The policeman on the corner was endeavoring to direct a very small
boy with a very large bundle. "Up one block and turn east," he
said, impressively. "I've told you that now three times."

I had a flash of inspiration. "Copper it," I cried.

"Right," said Indiman, soberly. We walked down one block to Twenty-
eighth Street and then turned westward.

New York is a big city, and therefore entitled to present an
occasional anomaly to the observant eye. And this particular
section of Twenty-eighth Street is one of these departures from the
normal, a block or two of respectable, even handsome houses set as
an oasis in a dull and sordid neighborhood. How and why this should
be does not matter; it is to be presumed that the people who live