all to typify the spirit of the place, without reference
to any particular time or generation."

"Father Knickerbocker!" I murmured, as I felt myself
dozing off to sleep, rocked by the motion of the car.
"Father Knickerbocker, how strange if he could be here
again and see the great city as we know it now! How
different from his day! How I should love to go round
New York and show it to him as it is."

So I mused and dozed till the very rumble of the wheels
seemed to piece together in little snatches. "Father
Knickerbocker--Father Knickerbocker--the Battery--the
Battery--citizens walking with their wives, with their
wives--their own wives"--until presently, I imagine, I
must have fallen asleep altogether and knew no more till
my journey was over and I found myself among the roar
and bustle of the concourse of the Grand Central.

And there, lo and behold, waiting to meet me, was Father
Knickerbocker himself! I know not how it happened, by
what queer freak of hallucination or by what actual
miracle--let those explain it who deal in such things
--but there he stood before me, with an outstretched hand
and a smile of greeting, Father Knickerbocker himself,
the Embodied Spirit of New York.

"How strange," I said. "I was just reading about you in
a book on the train and imagining how much I should like
actually to meet you and to show you round New York."