We strolled about slowly, and at half past one were quite ready to sit still and not only eat our lunch but watch business mankind eat his.  If any one wishes to feel the clutch and motive power of the Whirlpool let him go to the Mazarin any time between twelve-thirty and two o’clock.  The streets themselves are surging with men, all hurrying first in one direction, then another, until it seems as if there either must be a fire somewhere, or else a riot afoot.  The doors of the restaurant open and shut incessantly, corks pop, knives and forks rattle, everything is being served from a sandwich and a glass of beer to an elaborate repast with a wine to every course, while through and above it all the stress of business is felt.  Of course the great financiers usually have luncheon served in their offices, to save them from the crowd; besides, it might give common humanity a chance to scrutinize their countenances, and perchance read what they thought upon some question of moment, for it sometimes seems as if the eye of the New York journalist has X-ray power.  On the other hand, the humbler grade, with less of either time or money to spare, go to the “quick lunch” counters and “dime-in-the-slot” sandwich concerns; yet Evan says that the gathering at the Mazarin is fairly representative.

Miss Lavinia was bewildered.  Her downtown visits to her broker’s office were always made in a cab, with Lucy to stay in it as a preventative of the driver’s taking a sly glass or a thief snatching her lap-robe—­she never uses public carriage rugs.  She clung to the obsolete idea that Wall Street was no place for women, and saw, as in a dream, the daintily dressed stenographers, bookkeepers, and confidential clerks mingling with the trousered ranks in the street, not to mention the damsels in tidy shirtwaists, with carefully undulated hair and pointed, polished finger nails, who were lunching at near-by tables, sometimes seemingly with their employers as well as with other male or female friends.

“I wonder how much of all this is bad for uptown home life?” Miss Lavinia queried, gazing around the room; but as she did not address either of us in particular, we did not answer, as we did not know,—­who does?

A spare half-hour before closing time we gave to the Stock Exchange, and it was quite enough, for some one was short on something, and pandemonium reigned.  As we stood on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, hesitating whether to take surface or elevated cars, faint strains of organ music from Trinity attracted us.

“Service or choir practice; let us go in a few moments,” said Evan, to whom the organ is a voice that never fails to draw.  We took seats far back, and lost ourselves among the shadows.  A special service was in progress, the music half Gregorian, and the congregation was too scattered to mar the feeling that we had slipped suddenly out of the material world.  The shadows of the sparrows outside flitted upward on the stained glass windows, until it seemed as if the great chords had broken free and taking form were trying to escape.