and a pipe, with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled
soul. 

It was a wild, black kind of night, and the weirdness of
it showed up as I passed from light to light or crossed the
mouths of dim alleys leading Heaven knows to what infernal
dens of mystery and crime even in this latter-day city of ours.
The moon was up as far as the church steeples; large
vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and her,
and a strong, gusty wind, laden with big raindrops snarled
angrily round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange
voices talking about things not of human interest. 

It made no difference to me, of course.  New York in
this year of grace is not the place for the supernatural
be the time never so fit for witch-riding and the night wind
in the chimney-stacks sound never so much like the last
gurgling cries of throttled men.  No! the world was very
matter-of-fact, and particularly so to me, a poor younger
son with five dollars in my purse by way of fortune, a packet