Follow the lines of these watchmen of the temple! These grave,
dignified, majestic columns standing out in the gloom keeping
guard! But it is only a question of time--down they'll come! See
if they don't!"

"They will never dare move them," I protested. "It would be too
great a sacrilege." The best way to get Peter properly started is
never to agree with him.

"Not move them! They will break them up for dock-filling before
ten years are out. They're in the way, my boy; they shut out the
light; can't hang signs on them; can't plaster them over with
theatre bills; no earthly use. 'Wall Street isn't Rome or any
other excavated ruin; it's the centre of the universe'--that's
the way the fellows behind these glass windows talk." Here Peter
pointed to the offices of some prominent bankers, where other
belated clerks were still at work under shaded gas-jets. "These
fellows don't want anything classic; they want something that'll
earn four per cent."

We were now opposite the Sub-Treasury, its roof lost in the
settling fogs, the bronze figure of the Father of His Country
dominating the flight of marble steps and the adjacent streets.

Again Peter wheeled; this time he lifted his hat to the statue.

"Good evening, your Excellency," he said in a voice mellowed to
the same respectful tone with which he would have addressed the
original in the flesh.