{"product_id":"2940014044028","title":"The Phial of Dread and other stories","description":"I believe that I am now safe. This part of Columbia Street is not much\u003cbr\u003evisited by any people who ever knew me. The other end is in Grand\u003cbr\u003eStreet. I doubt whether any of my acquaintance have vivid recollection\u003cbr\u003eof that end either. As for myself, I was aware of neither end nor\u003cbr\u003emiddle till three days ago. Being in Broadway, with an infinite terror\u003cbr\u003ehanging on my shoulders like a cloak--starting at every louder voice\u003cbr\u003eof man, woman, or child---recoiling from every rapidly approaching\u003cbr\u003estranger who looked me in the face--I naturally enough wished to get\u003cbr\u003eaway--any where out of the bustle. On my left hand was Grand Street;\u003cbr\u003eto turn into it was the most obvious method of escaping from Broadway.\u003cbr\u003eSo I _did_ turn. For a block beyond Brooks's great limbo of possible\u003cbr\u003ebut undeveloped pantaloons Grand Street keeps a fashionable air. Thus\u003cbr\u003efar are whiffs of Broadway sucked into its draft; thus far you meet\u003cbr\u003eBroadway faces; thus far you are reminded of Broadway---are not quite\u003cbr\u003eat ease with the idea of being out of it--may at any moment be\u003cbr\u003eaccosted by somebody you have met before on the great pave. I walked\u003cbr\u003efaster, therefore. Broadway began to fade out; the Bowery character\u003cbr\u003ebecome slowly dominant. I reached--I crossed the Bowery. Now I began\u003cbr\u003eto breathe freer. I was pretty sure--growing surer--that I should not\u003cbr\u003ebe recognized; and the cloak lifted from my shoulders. The terror did\u003cbr\u003enot leave me, but it followed quietly afar off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA strange place is the part of Grand Street I was going through now,\u003cbr\u003eto be sure! Quite a Broadway by itself, though not _the_ Broadway,\u003cbr\u003ethank Heaven! but a sort of shabby Broadway come to New York to visit\u003cbr\u003eits merchant prince-cousin; and not being recognized as a connection,\u003cbr\u003egoing off in a huff and setting up for itself--the Broadway of the\u003cbr\u003eeast to west, entirely independent of the north to south aristocrat.\u003cbr\u003eOr to the speculative mind it might seem an old shell shed by Broadway\u003cbr\u003ethe Magnificent thirty years ago, while marble and Albert granite were\u003cbr\u003eunconceived--a shell captured by the hermit crab called Grand Street,\u003cbr\u003eand peacefully lived in ever since; the ghost of old Broadway, as\u003cbr\u003eknown to our fathers, reappearing across the track of young Broadway,\u003cbr\u003eyet a ghost, sociable, responsive, fearless of daylight, not to be\u003cbr\u003elaid. All such thoughts as these whirled through my brain as I strode\u003cbr\u003ealong with nervous, devious feet, and they seemed to fight back for a\u003cbr\u003eshort farther distance _the terror_. I hailed them gladly, therefore,\u003cbr\u003eand indulged them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere were tailors, from the plethora of their shops evidently\u003cbr\u003erejoicing in abundant custom, famous, blessed, well-to-do; and all\u003cbr\u003ethis within the world of Grand Street--elsewhere unknown. So many\u003cbr\u003egreen-grocers, with fresh Bermuda potatoes and cucumbers piled up in\u003cbr\u003efront of them, supplying a class of citizens who never gave one\u003cbr\u003ethought to Washington Market. So many celebrated doctors, all in black\u003cbr\u003eand gilt on the dull sides of the two-story brick houses. Dentists, on\u003cbr\u003egreat door-plates of tarnished mock silver--and I had never heard of\u003cbr\u003ethem before. Mouths filled, teeth pulled, backs clothed, children\u003cbr\u003eeducated--all trades and professions going on--even a wholesale dry-\u003cbr\u003egoods store taking up two numbers, like a Murray Street or Liberty\u003cbr\u003eStreet firm, and selling dollars' worths to its small neighbors who\u003cbr\u003edid the pennyworth business; and evidently none of all these depended\u003cbr\u003ein the least on any other part of New York for a living. I breathed\u003cbr\u003efree in Grand Street, more and more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll the baggage that it was at present convenient for my to carry was\u003cbr\u003ea carpet-bag, not over heavy. I had that in my hand. What, then, was\u003cbr\u003eto prevent my taking lodgings in Grand Street? I should not be traced\u003cbr\u003ehere; the chances were a thousand to one against my ever seeing a\u003cbr\u003eknown face; and these were the qualifications which just now would\u003cbr\u003emake the most miserable tenement worth double the most sumptuous\u003cbr\u003eparlor of the St. Nicholas. Why not take lodgings here?--yes, why not?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I asked myself this question I stood, with the carpet-bag in my\u003cbr\u003ehand, vacillating from one foot to the other, and once or twice\u003cbr\u003eturning completely around. Take lodgings? Yes, to be sure. Why not?","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073861468400,"sku":"2940014044028","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014044028_p0.jpg?v=1763599577","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014044028","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}