ies, he met
a group of four young men, walking compactly by twos. The one nearest
him in the second line was Herbert Cressey. His heavy and rather dull
eye seemed to meet Banneker's as they came abreast. Banneker nodded,
half checking himself in his slow walk.

"How are you?" he said with an accent of surprise and pleasure.

Cressey's expressionless face turned a little. There was no response in
kind to Banneker's smile.

"Oh! H'ware you!" said he vaguely, and passed on.

Banneker advanced mechanically until he reached the corner. There he
stopped. His color had heightened. The smile was still on his lips; it
had altered, taken on a quality of gameness. He did not shake his fist
at the embodied spirit of metropolitanism before him, as had a famous
Gallic precursor of his, also a determined seeker for Success in a
lesser sphere; but he paraphrased Rastignac's threat in his own terms.

"I reckon I'll have to lick this town and lick it good before it learns
to be friendly."

A hand fell on his arm. He turned to face Cressey.

"You're the feller that bossed the wreck out there in the desert, aren't
you? You're--lessee--Banneker."

"I am." The tone was curt.

"Awfully sorry I didn't spot you at once." Cressey's genuineness was a
sufficient apology. "I'm a little stuffy to-day. Bachelor dinner last
night. What are you doing here? Looking around?"

"No. I'm living here."

"That so? So am I. Come into my club and let's talk. I'm glad to see
you, Mr. Banneker."

Even had Banneker been prone to self-consciousness, which he was not,
the extreme, almost monastic plainness of the small, neutral-fronted
building to which the other led him would have set him at ease. It gave
no inkling of its unique exclusiveness, and equally unique
expensiveness. As for Cressey, that simple, direct, and confident soul
took not the smallest account of Banneker's standardized clothing, which
made him almost as conspicuous in that environment as if he had entered
clad in a wooden packing-case. Cressey's creed in such matters was
complete; any friend of his was good enough for any environment to which
he might introduce him, and any other friend who took exceptions might
go farther!

"Banzai!" said the cheerful host over his cocktail. "Welcome to our
city. Hope you like it."

"I do," said Banneker, lifting his glass in response.

"Where are you living?"

"Grove Street."

Cressey knit his brows. "Where's that? Harlem?"

"No. Over