lamp, straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near
me some people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even
fancied I could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet,
but I could not make out from which part of the compass the sounds
came. And sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand,
and again, to be floating high in the air above my head. Although I
was surrounded by thousands of householders--13--I was as completely
lost as though I had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert.
There seemed to be no reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I
again set out, and at once bumped against a low iron fence. At first I
believed this to be an area railing, but on following it I found that
it stretched for a long distance, and that it was pierced at regular
intervals with gates. I was standing uncertainly with my hand on one
of these when a square of light suddenly opened in the night, and in
it I saw, as you see a picture thrown by a biograph in a darkened
theatre, a young gentleman in evening dress, and back of him the
lights of a hall. I guessed from its elevation and distance from the
side-walk that this light must come from the door of a house set back
from the street, and I determined to approach it and ask the young man
to tell me where I was. But in fumbling with the lock of the gate I
instinctively bent my head, and when I raised it again the door had
partly closed, leaving only a narrow shaft of light. Whether the young
man had re-entered the house, or had left it I could not tell, but I
hastened to open the gate, and as I stepped forward I found myself
upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant there was the sound of quick
steps upon the path, and some one rushed past me. I called to him, but
he made no reply, and I heard the gate click and the footsteps
hurrying away upon the sidewalk.

"Under other circumstances the young man's rudeness, and his