“And what of it?” demanded my particular friend, challengingly.

It was a rebuke.  It was as if he had said, “On this great night, when you enter my wondrous and romantic country for the first time, what does it matter whether you sleep or not?”

I saw the point.  I drank the coffee.  The romantic sense, which had been momentarily driven back by the discussion of general ideas, swept over me again....  In fact, through the saloon windows could be seen all the Battery end of New York and the first vague visions of sky-scrapers....  Then-the moments refused to be counted—­we were descending by lifts and by gangways from the high upper decks of the ship down onto the rocky ground of the United States.  I don’t think that any American ever set foot in Europe with a more profound and delicious thrill than that which affected me at that instant....  I was there!...  The official and unofficial activities of the quay passed before me like a dream....  I heard my name shouted by a man in a formidably severe uniform, and I thought, “Thus early have I somehow violated the Constitution of these States?” But it was only a telegram for me....  And then I was in a most rickety and confined taxi, and the taxi was full to the brim with luggage, two friends, and me.  And I was off into New York.

At the center of the first cross-roads I saw a splendid and erect individual, flashing forth authority, gaiety, and utter smartness in the gloom.  Impossible not to believe that he was the owner of all the adjacent ground, disguised as a cavalry officer on foot.

“What is that archduke?” I inquired.

“He’s just a cop.”

I knew then that I was in a great city.

[Illustration:  Broadway on election night]

The rest of the ride was an enfevered phantasmagoria.  We burst startlingly into a very remarkable deep glade—­on the floor of it long and violent surface-cars, a few open shops and bars with commissionaires at the doors, vehicles dipping and rising out of holes in the ground, vistas of forests of iron pillars, on the top of which ran deafening, glittering trains, as on a tight-rope; above all that, a layer of darkness; and above the layer of darkness enormous moving images of things in electricity—­a mastodon kitten playing with a ball of thread, an umbrella in a shower of rain, siphons of soda-water being emptied and filled, gigantic horses galloping at full speed, and an incredible heraldry of chewing-gum....  Sky-signs!  In Europe I had always inveighed manfully against sky-signs.  But now I bowed the head, vanquished.  These sky-signs annihilated argument.  Moreover, had they not been made possible by the invention of a European, and that European an intimate friend of my own?...

“I suppose this is Broadway?” I ventured.

It was.  That is to say, it was one of the Broadways.  There are several different ones.  What could be more different from this than the down-town Broadway of Trinity Church and the crowded sky-scrapers?  And even this Broadway could differ from itself, as I knew later on an election night....  I was overpowered by Broadway.