The east-bound train was ploughing through a January snow-storm; the dull dawn was beginning to show grey when the engine whistled a mile out of Newark.  Paul started up from the seat where he had lain curled in uneasy slumber, rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his hand, and peered out.  The snow was whirling in curling eddies above the white bottom lands, and the drifts lay already deep in the fields and along the fences, while here and there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded black above it.  Lights shone from the scattered houses, and a gang of labourers who stood beside the track waved their lanterns.

Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable.  He had made the all-night journey in a day coach because he was afraid if he took a Pullman he might be seen by some Pittsburgh business man who had noticed him in Denny & Carson’s office.  When the whistle woke him, he clutched quickly at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an uncertain smile.  But the little, clay-bespattered Italians were still sleeping, the slatternly women across the aisle were in open-mouthed oblivion, and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled.  Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience as best he could.

When he arrived at the Jersey City station, he hurried through his breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about him.  After he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he consulted a cabman, and had himself driven to a men’s furnishing establishment which was just opening for the day.  He spent upward of two hours there, buying with endless reconsidering and great care.  His new street suit he put on in the fitting-room; the frock coat and dress clothes he had bundled into the cab with his new shirts.  Then he drove to a hatter’s and a shoe house.  His next errand was at Tiffany’s, where he selected silver mounted brushes and a scarf-pin.  He would not wait to have his silver marked, he said.  Lastly, he stopped at a trunk shop on Broadway, and had his purchases packed into various travelling bags.

It was a little after one o’clock when he drove up to the Waldorf, and, after settling with the cabman, went into the office.  He registered from Washington; said his mother and father had been abroad, and that he had come down to await the arrival of their steamer.  He told his story plausibly and had no trouble, since he offered to pay for them in advance, in engaging his rooms; a sleeping-room, sitting-room and bath.

Not once, but a hundred times Paul had planned this entry into New York.  He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in his scrap book at home there were pages of description about New York hotels, cut from the Sunday papers.