, park-bench loiterers; all that drifting and iridescent
scum of life which variegates the surface above the depths. Everywhere
he was accepted without question, for his old experience on the hoof had
given him the uncoded password which loosens the speech of furtive men
and wise. A receptivity, sensitized to a high degree by the inspiration
of new adventure, absorbed these impressions. The faithful pocket-ledger
was filling rapidly with notes and phrases, brisk and trenchant, set
down with no specific purpose; almost mechanically, in fact, but
destined to future uses. Mallory, himself no mean connoisseur of the
tumultuous and flagrant city, would perhaps have found matter foreign to
his expert apprehension could he have seen and translated the pages of 3
T 9901.

Banneker would go forward in the fascinating paths of exploration; but
there were other considerations.

The outer man, for example. The inner man, too; the conscious inner man
strengthened upon the strong milk of the philosophers, the priests, and
the prophets so strangely mingled in that library now stored with
Camilla Van Arsdale; exhilarated by the honey-dew of "The Undying
Voices," of Keats and Shelley, and of Swinburne's supernal rhythms,
which he had brought with him. One visit to the Public Library had quite
appalled him; the vast, chill orderliness of it. He had gone there,
hungry to chat about books! To the Public Library! Surely a Homeric joke
for grim, tomish officialdom. But tomish officialdom had not even
laughed at him; it was too official to appreciate the quality of such
side-splitting innocence.... Was he likely to meet a like
irresponsiveness when he should seek clothing for the body?

Watch the clubs, young Wickert had advised. Banneker strolled up Fifth
Avenue, branching off here and there, into the more promising side
streets.

It was the hour of the First Thirst; the institutions which cater to
this and subsequent thirsts drew steadily from the main stream of human
activity flowing past. Many gloriously clad specimens passed in and out
of the portals, socially sacred as in the quiet Fifth Avenue clubs,
profane as in the roaring, taxi-bordered "athletic" foundations; but
there seemed to the anxious observer no keynote, no homogeneous
character wherefrom to build as on a sure foundation. Lacking knowledge,
his instinct could find no starting-point; he was bewildered in vision
and in mind. Just off the corner of the quietest of the Fort