ing haze that seemed a luminous
vapor rising from dazzling avenues.

Wherever the eye could see myriad lights were twinkling: brooding and
fraught with the dark mystery of lonely, distant river banks; red, green
and golden on the rivers, crossing busily on a purposeful way; intruding
and bewildering in the service of industry from steel skeletons against
the sky; magic and dreamlike on the fairy spread of miraculous bridges;
winking and dancing with the spirit of gaiety from the theaters below
and the roof gardens above; that in the summer, suddenly spread a new
and brilliant city of the night above the tired metropolis of the day.
Looking down on these myriad points of light one seemed to have suddenly
come upon the nesting of the stars; where planets and constellations
germinated and took flight toward the swarming firmament.

The incomparable drama of the spectacle affected the four young men on
the threshold of life in a different way. Bojo, to whom the sensation
was new, felt a sort of prophetic stimulation as though in the
glittering sweep below lay the jewel which he was to carry off.
Granning, who had broken into the monastic routine of his life to make
an exception of this gathering of the clans, looked out in reverence,
stirred to deeper questionings of the spirit. Marsh, more dramatically
attuned, felt a sensation of weakness, as though suddenly confronted
with the gigantic scheme of the multitude; he felt the impotence of
single effort. While DeLancy, who dined thus every night, seeing no
further than the festooned gardens, the brilliant splashes of color, the
faces of women flushed in the yellow glow of candle-lights, hearing only
the pleasant thrumming sounds of a hidden orchestra, rattled on in his
privileged way.

"Well, now that the Big Four is together again, let's divide up the
city." He sent a sweeping gesture toward the stenciled stretch of blocks
below and continued: "Boscy, what'll you have? Take your choice. I'll
have a couple of hotels, a yacht and a box at the opera. Next bidder,
please!"

But Bojo without attention to this chatter said:

"Remember the night before we went to college and we picked out what we
intended to make. Came pretty close to it too, didn't we?"

Marsh looked up quickly, seized by a sudden dramatic suggestion.

"Well, here we are again. I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's tell the
truth--no buncombe--just what each expects to get out of life."

"But will we tell th