ints of rendezvous, "Nothing
but wine," and, "Everything goes."

Vendors of paper caps, false mustaches, confetti, balloons and all the
noise-swelling devices ever bred of deviltry, hawked their wares along
the curbs, and the furs of women glittered with atoms of colored paper.

Within the restaurants and cabarets was added to the outer din a
popping of corks, a fanfare of orchestras and the songs of supper guests
at tables and dancers on the floors.

Already a sequence of wild scenes telescoped themselves along the White
Way, but the evening was yet young and would ripen toward fulfilment as
the hours progressed. Its Bacchanalian zenith would be reached after the
million lights of these gilded places had died--like the snuffing of a
single candle--into the five minutes of darkness which heralds the
changing year.

Along the uproarious sidewalks, pressing ragged shoulders to the
richness of ermine and seal, drifted many hopeless derelicts, but
tonight was to be a night of forgetting them, of forgetting everything
save that it was a "large evening" and that life held only the present
clarion of gaiety. The tragedy under this thin crust must be ignored.
Mirth must be crowned; laughter must be enthroned; glasses must sparkle
and clink and such individuals as elected to remain sober must look
indulgently and smilingly on scenes which, at another time, would
require a blush. To blush on Broadway on New Year's Eve would be a
misdemeanor. It doesn't happen.

One splinter of human drift which was carried along on the tide gazed
about out of a chalky face--morphia-stamped. This chip on the churning
eddy bore the name of Paul Burton. He had of course no business there.
For him there was no reasonable prospect of a happy new year. There
still remained a roof--of a sort--to cover him when he went home, which
was not so often as it should be, and he still wore a suit of decent
cut, though of a past fashion, but in its pockets there was no jingle of
coins. Passively Paul had been drawn into the maelstrom of the marching
crowds, yet he was not of its membership. He could not turn in at any
of the doors that blazed with light and invitation. But he had certain
dreams which vaguely recompensed him--and in his pockets was a
hypodermic needle.

At Longacre square, where the swirl and eddy of human currents met and
became a cauldron and whirlpool, he was held up at a crossing, while the
crowd shrunk back on itself, waiting the raise