A Million a Minute: a Romance of Modern New York and Paris

An excerpt from the beginning of:

CHAPTER I - QUAINTANCE OPENS A NEW ACCOUNT WITH FATE AT THE NIGHT AND DAY BANK

On a mellow afternoon in late Fall, the gardens of Madison Square were all aglow, like a monstrous palette : flower-beds and foliage, at their most brilliant, a blend of such living tints as no mere earthly artist may; ever attain.

Quaintance, looking out on the enlivening scene for the first time after long, weary years of exile, conscious that nowhere in all his wanderings had he found outlook so thoroughly to his liking, paused in the pillared porch of the Fifth Avenue Hotel to drink it in at his leisure and in more detail.

The dry, rustling leaves were letting long shafts of light through or cast dancing shadows across the trim, verdant turf close bordered by low benches all black with the flotsam of the busy city. The paved walks, patterned in arabesque upon the green, rang with the cries of children at their play. The pulsing fountain in their midst threw up with rhythmic regularity a sparkling silver column, which broke, and fell back, like liquid diamonds. The air was like new wine.

A gentle breeze was tempering to genial warmth' the sunshine streaming from an azure sky studded with cool, pure clouds which hung there motionless. The many-colored unequal buildings, cupola, tower, or square, flat roof, which rise or squat with such bewildering effect against the blue, had all been scrubbed clean by the recent rain. The white bulk of the Flatiron loomed loftily above its lesser neighbors, one shoulder turned contemptuously towards its infinitely loftier successor in the race to reach the clouds.

About its base the traffic surged in swirling eddies, splitting to right and left along the canons of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, spreading to east and west across the city, or rolling in a widening wave upon the Square, according to the dictates of the autocrats in uniform responsible for its direction. As these waved white-gloved hands, blew whistles, brandished flags, the surface cars clanked through the maelstrom with gongs clanging, motors and cabs and carriages accumulated in deep ranks or spurted on their way, while anxious-eyed pedestrians risked life and limb amongst them, progressed from point to point by reckless rushes.

At the Bartholdi corner newsboys were shouting extras, and a big observation car, crowded with sightseers, was in the act of starting, its cicerone, armed with a raucous megaphone, pleading for still more passengers. The hoarse honk-honk of motor horns blended with the shrill bells of swift electric coupes. The ceaseless hum of human voices was like a vast hive of restless bees.

The tin-pan tinkle of a street piano, attempting "Dixie," came thinly through the tramp of feet innumerable from the near curb. The watcher's heart warmed to the old-time melody, and the deep breath he drew was one of such contentment as he had been stranger to for long.

He could still count the days which had elapsed since his release from the stark, deathlike silences and gloom of that grey jungle-land wherein all he had been lay buried. That which he had borne there, in solitude, had bred in him a hungry, vehement desire to mix again among his fellowmen, to see and hear and feel for himself that the world was not all one forlorn, sun-sick waste of swamp and mangrove.

Only an hour ago he had stepped ashore from an African steamer, and even on the voyage across he had not, somehow, managed to shake off the consciousness of isolation from his kind. The sea had seemed almost as empty and mysterious as the dark land he had left behind him. But now, at last, he could realize that the past had been but a dreary nightmare, out of which he had awakened to a new day, among his home-folk, sane, safe, and sound. And the sense of close companionship with the brisk, bustling throng about him, the quick staccato of their curtailed speech, the evidence on all hands that he was once more but an unconsidered unit among the millions, were beyond words comforting to him.

He smiled to think of the dark fears which had oppressed him, and, stepping down into the street, turned slowly northward.

"The Night and Day Bank will probably serve my turn," he opined, and laid a hand on one waistcoat pocket to ascertain that its contents were still secure.

"No, I don't want a cab, confound you! I'm going to walk. I want to rub shoulders with other people: I want them to jostle me, just to make sure that this isn't all make-believe. It seems almost too good to be true. And it's such ages since I've set foot on a street that I've got to find out again what it's like to travel along a sidewalk. I've all sorts of things to see, too."

He waved away the prowling hansom whose driver had hailed him, and sauntered up Fifth Avenue, in a most complaisant humor....