With the breaking of the silent dawn, shadowed in
a lonely archway or on an abandoned doorstep the
wet, bedraggled body of a hapless moth is sometimes
found, her iridescent wings flattened in the mud.
Then for a brief moment a cry of protest, or scorn,
or pity goes up. The passers-by raise their hands in
anger, draw their skirts aside in horror, or kneel in
tenderness. It is the same the world over, and New
York is no better and, for that matter, no worse.


On one of these rain-drenched nights, some ten
years or more ago, when the streets were flooded with
jewels, and the sky-line aflame, a man in a slouch
hat, a wet mackintosh clinging to his broad shoulders,
stood close to the entrance of one of the principal
playhouses along this Great White Way. He
had kept his place since the doors were opened, his
hat-brim, pulled over his brow, his keen eye searching
every face that passed. To all appearances he was
but an idle looker-on, attracted by the beauty of
the women, and yet during all that time he had not
moved, nor had he been in the way, nor had he been
observed even by the door man, the flap of the awning
casting its shadow about him. Only once had he
strained forward, gazing intently, then again relaxed,
settling into his old position.

Not until the last couple had hurried by, breathless
at being late, did he refasten the top button of his